Experimental contribution to a theory of thinking / by Henry J. Watt.

  • Watt, Henry J. (Henry Jackson), 1879-1925.
Date:
[1904?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Experimental contribution to a theory of thinking / by Henry J. Watt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    the second tendency to reproduction, produces a large mass of evidence, partly from the record of the subject and partly from manifold combina- tions of the various experimental data, much too detailed to be described, in favour of the reproduction which actually took place. This shows that, if other conditions remain the same, it is the individual strength or rapidity of the tendency to reproduction which determines the reproduction, and not anything else. In other words, the influence of the task is the same for all the reproductions it makes possible. It is not meant, of course, that our everyday conception of choice has no meaning, but only that the influences which determine every event in our mental experience fall into two large groups, the operating task and the individual strength of the reproductions which come thereby in question. On the one hand, the task may find no reproductions, in which case no reaction can occur; and, on the other hand, the strength of the tendency to reproduction may be too great for the task to operate, in which case it forces its way out in spite of the task, or before any reproduction which the task favours has had time to become actual: in other words, a wrong reaction takes place. Otherwise, more or less suitable reactions occur. This is thought to be valid for the whole of our mental experience, because the very few cases which offered no explanation, contained no indication of any other determining factors, and are therefore to be placed alongside the others with the remark that in these cases the record of the subject or the experimental data were probably deficient, as can always occur in such experiments. A detailed examination shows further that the general content, the vividness, and the frequency of our visual representations is dependent on the nature of the task in question. It is therefore probable that rather hasty generalisations have been made of the possible types of mental imagery. It could very well be, according to this result, that a subject who showed an entire absence of visual representation with the kind of task which has hitherto been given to determine the types of mental imagery, would with other tasks show quite a lively and detailed visual imagination. An example of almost such a case occurred among the subjects used for these experiments. It is probable, however, that one who has fewer and less vivid imagery than another with one task, will with another task again have less vivid and detailed imagery than the other. The attempt to establish an association by contrast or by similarity is then discussed, on the basis of the experiments, and is rejected, because it is found to be impossible to show that similarity as such could determine an association. Apparent determinations of reproductions by similarity are found to dissolve into more detailed reproductions, which are themselves