The Psychology Of Learning by Meumann E

The Psychology Of Learning by Meumann E

Author:Meumann,E.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: PHILOSOPHY. PSYCHOLOGY, Philosophy of mind
Publisher: D.Appleton And Company.


Let us now examine the methods which have been employed for the determination of ideational types. A consideration of these methods seems likely to throw still more light upon the nature and the pedagogical significance of the types themselves. We have not yet discovered a perfectly satisfactory method for the rapid and reliable determination of

1 F. L. Wells, The Relation of Practice to Individual Differences, r. Jour. Psychol., XXIII., 1912, 75-88,

ideational types. The methods which have been in current use are ingenious devices rather than accurate and systematic methods. The method of distractions and aids combined with the reaction-time method gives the most rapid and the most reliable results. In this procedure the observer is given a number of definite memory tasks of equal difficulty and the time required to accomplish each task is measured. By this means we are able to determine the amount of memorial work accomplished and the time required for its accomplishment. Then aids and distractions are introduced with a view to helping and hindering the work of memory; and these are so chosen that the means which are employed in the special memories and which constitute the observer's type may be aided or hindered. In this way we determine whether the time required to accomplish a given amount of memory work is decreased or increased, and what is the relative amount of decrease or increase in different individuals. For instance, an observer is asked to memorize groups of numbers or letters x>r to recite them immediately after he has read them. By this means we are able to discover the maximum of numbers or letters which he just succeeds in memorizing, and to measure the time which he required for their memorization.

Now we assume that the auditory individual is distracted more by the presence of auditory stimuli, the visual by visual stimuli, and the motor by the inhibition of his internal speech. One would then expect that the possession of a dominantly visual type of ideation would be revealed by tlje fact that memorial efficiency is not essentially impaired by an inhibition of internal speech; and that the presence of a motor type would be disclosed by the fact that an inhibition of vocal movements almost wholly destroys the capacity to memorize. As Segal has pointed out, this method can yield unequivocal results only when it is supplemented by variations in the mode of

presenting the material, and when we take into consideration whether the material is mentally reproducible in single or manifold fashion. Just as, by this method, we introduce distractions, so we may also introduce aids or helps to memorization. For instance, the visualizer may be identified from the fact that his retention is materially aided and strengthened by a distinct spatial arrangement of the material which he is to reproduce; and this aid is non-effective or even negative in the case of the auditory individual because the latter must now form successive groups of impressions, and a definite spatial arrangement of the items to be remembered may hinder his procedure in memorization.



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