Part 23

Many a student approaches a study such as psychology or logic with an unshakable conviction that he is about to consider matters abstruse and difficult; things totally unrelated to what he has studied elsewhere or experienced before, and accordingly requiring an exercise of the mental faculties as different as possible from that to which he has been accustomed. It is not altogether strange that such notions should be current, because the tradition to that effect is ancient and strong, and originated in times when scholars generally, and philosophers perhaps more than others, took pride in exclusive erudition, in the possession of a more or less esoteric wisdom quite unrelated to the knowing and the thinking of οἱ πολλοί [Greek: hoi polloi]. It requires the combined operation of long periods of time and of persistent effort to weaken such beliefs; and it is only within recent times that the notion has been successfully disseminated that the processes considered in psychology and logic derive their validity from our daily experience, and require for their comprehension no mental gymnastics or intellectual contortions; that in brief these sciences simply aim to systematize and improve, to interpret and explain the every-day processes by which knowledge is gained. This, at all events, is one of their functions, and one profitably emphasized in the introductory study of their scope and content.

When one has once formed the impression, or has had it produced or suggested for him, that the study or the task he is about to attack is a difficult one, his mental powers are at once sufficiently reduced to make it really difficult; the signal is given of an approaching intricate turn in the road, the brakes are turned on, and the train of thought creeps along slowly. Mental prepossession leads to mental inertia. The same question which the student would answer readily and fully when asked by a friend as an item of general information, becomes utterly beyond his comprehension when it appears in the text-book, the title-page of which bears the ominous name of one or other of the studies reputed as difficult. The mind is not properly set; there is little receptiveness, little alertness. When we are asked in a conundrum-like tone, why one thing is like another, we ignore obvious and simple resemblances, and look about for obscure ones. The student who labors under the illusion that psychology is a maze of conundrums, employs mental processes appropriate to such a pursuit. The schoolboy finds it impossible to answer a question in arithmetic during the geography lesson, and the same lack of adaptability is shown by his older counterpart when he greets the answer to a very simple question (which, however, he himself failed to answer) with the all too familiar, "Oh, of course I knew _that_." Perhaps the most extreme instance of the many that I could cite is that of a student so irresponsive and apparently at sea regarding the topic under discussion--the senses--as to force me to ask him, "With what do you hear?" and who answered with perfect sincerity, "I don't know." This was a psychological question, and as such became as difficult as the spelling of _cat_ at the end of a "spelling bee."

When the student has been made to feel that the questions he is asked can be answered from his everyday experience, and that common sense is often quite as serviceable a guide as special knowledge, a progress ensues in every way satisfactory. Such a conviction, however, is not a matter of verbal acknowledgment; it yields slowly to explanation and proceeds somewhat unconsciously and inwardly. Moreover, it is a trait very sensitive to the power of contagion, so that a comparatively small proportion of the class may successfully spread this mental attitude to the whole number. A question which two or three have failed to answer becomes invested with a spurious difficulty which makes it a deep mystery to all the others.

This mental prepossession may at times have quite different and curious results. When, for instance, the goal to be reached is given, when the answer may be looked up in the back of the book, it is surprising what peculiar and irrational steps will be taken to secure and justify the answer so given. This is all the more striking when the answer happens to be wrong; however simply such error may be discovered, the prepossessed mind will work away until by a more or less roundabout procedure the desired answer is reached. A noted professor of chemistry has an apt illustration of such a case. In a chemical test his assistant by mistake referred the class to the wrong bottle, so that the substance which the correct liquid would have dissolved could not be at all dissolved in the liquid actually used. However, on the professor's next round in his laboratory nearly every student assured him that the substance had dissolved, and a few went so far as to describe the precise manner of its dissolution.

It is quite clear that illustrations of mental prepossession, as also of inertia, may be found in many of the industries and occupations of life. The bicycle has added a very characteristic one. At a certain stage in the acquisition of the art of cycling, there comes a time when every obstacle and irregularity in the road absorbs the attention of the rider with a fascination that is quite irresistible. The rider is so possessed with the idea that he or she is going to run into the post or the curb or a rut or another vehicle, that the dreaded calamity may actually ensue. When the attention can be directed to the clear pathway, and the obstacles driven out from the focus of attention, the difficulty is surmounted. So in jumping or running and in other athletic trials, the entertainment of the notion of a possible failure to reach the mark lessens the intensity of one's effort, and prevents the accomplishment of one's best. He who hesitates is lost, because the hesitation makes possible the suggestion of a failure, the prepossession by a sense of difficulty.

II

Some of the illustrations of prepossession are somewhat trivial; others more important, but perhaps not so definite as might be desired. It is seldom that an instance of this propensity can be pointed out in which an accurate and quantitative comparison may be made between the possessed and the unpossessed mind. One such illustration, which seems to me comprehensive and significant, is worthy of more detailed record.[11] It is derived from the experience of the United States Census office in 1890, in tabulating the returns of the enumeration by means of machines specially devised for this purpose. I give an account of the manipulation of these machines in the words of one who had an intimate acquaintance with their use, and add italics to emphasize the points of special psychological significance.

"The adoption of Mr. Hollerith's tabulating machine for counting the population of the country according, at one and the same time, to sex, color, age, marital condition, nationality, occupation or profession, language and school attendance presented an entirely novel problem to the office. The machines having never been used for any purpose, there was no previous experience by which to act or on which to predicate results. The necessity was upon the office of employing for a very limited time (ninety days) at least five hundred people for this work alone, in addition to the one thousand who could be taken from other branches of the work and placed on this one. Every one, including Mr. Hollerith himself, felt that the rapid and accurate use of the punching machines called for a degree of cultivated intelligence not possessed by every clerk. So much for the mental attitude.

"The clerks (an instructor for every twenty) were taught to edit the family schedules from which the count was to be made, thus learning thoroughly how to read and classify the returns. In order to accommodate the returns to the capacity of a punching machine, a great variety of symbols were adopted for occupations and professions: thus Ad was used for farmer: Ac for farm hands: Kd for merchants: Gd for agents, etc., through twenty-four two-columned octavo pages of ordinary type. Some one symbol must be used for each occupation recorded, and the use of the symbols must be learned, and, for rapid work, they must be committed to memory.[12] _After five weeks of editing_, one by one, the most reliable and intelligent workers were set to use the punching machines. The task is much like that of using a typewriter, substituting for keys a movable punch which passes through lettered holes, and in place of the forty keys of an ordinary typewriter, about two hundred and fifty holes are to be learned.

"Mr. Hollerith set the number of cards for a day's work at 550. (Each finished card contained, on the average, 10 holes.) _It was two weeks before that number of cards was reached by any clerk_, and that only in exceptional cases. Then the entire force of the division was set to work. In two weeks most of them had reached five hundred, and the average was daily increasing. These clerks worked at first from edited schedules; that is, those on which had been written the symbols to be punched on the machine. A roll of honor was made out daily showing the highest records, and _in a week_ the clerks were doing from _six hundred to fifteen hundred a day_, but at a great cost of nervous force. So severe was the nervous strain that complaints were made to the Secretary of the Interior, who forbade any further posting of daily reports, and instead an order was posted that no clerk was required to do more than such a day's work as he or she could readily perform, and that no arbitrary number was required of any one.

"_After the work was well under way about two hundred new clerks were put into one room and scattered through the force already at work. They had no experience with schedules, knew nothing of the symbols, had never seen the machines. They saw those around them working easily and rapidly, and in_ THREE DAYS SEVERAL OF THEM HAD DONE FIVE HUNDRED, IN A WEEK NEARLY EVERY ONE, _while the general average was rising_. There was no longer any question of nervous strain, and one of these temporary clerks the day before she left beat the record by doing 2,230. I think the influence of the mental attitude quite as remarkable in the matter of their doing the work easily as in that of doing it rapidly. During the first month many were actually sick from overwork when doing seven hundred, while after that time the idea that the work was unusually trying was never referred to. Another significant fact is that after the posting of the daily record was abolished there was no falling off in the daily average, as had been anticipated, while complaints of overwork necessarily ceased."

It is thus demonstrated that an unskilled clerk, with an environment proving the possibility of a task and suggesting its easy accomplishment, can in _three days_ succeed in doing what a skilled clerk, with a preliminary acquaintance of five weeks with the symbols to be used, could do only after _two weeks'_ practice; and this because the latter, doubtless not a whit inferior in ability, had been led to regard his task as difficult.

III

If we consider the psychological relations of the processes involved in the above illustrations, we are led to the conviction that we seldom exert our powers to their full capacity. Instances in which, under the influence of some stirring, perhaps dangerous circumstance, persons exert physical energies ordinarily beyond their resources, are quite familiar; and the same is true though less readily demonstrated of mental effort. The success of the various methods of "mind cure," in which the conviction of the possibility of a cure so markedly aids its realization, adds another class of illustrations; and among the experiments with hypnotized persons occur countless instances of the performance of actions, both physical and mental, quite surpassing what is regarded as normal. The powers which are here called upon through somewhat extreme and drastic means, can doubtless be drawn upon to a less extent by the use of more moderate agencies; and this at once suggests the educational utilization of the mental attitude in question. Perhaps the ideal aim is to impress the student indirectly rather than directly, by manner rather than by instruction, with the conviction that what is required of him is well within his powers; and to do this without in the least impugning the necessity of honest, hard work for the accomplishment of serious results. The complaint is often made that the American boy takes longer by several years to reach a given grade of scholarship than his foreign brother; and the reason of this difference is usually assigned to the extremely slow progress made in the elementary public schools. The machinery is started at too slow a rate, and seems to leave the impress of its inertia upon all succeeding periods.

It is not possible to devise any readily formulated and easily applied cure for this mental prepossession; our aim must be to sterilize the mental atmosphere, so that the germs of the disease may not gain a foothold; to set a healthy normal step and take it for granted that it can be followed by all but the laggards. But in spite of all effort, the failing is quite certain to crop out, and will always continue to demand for its treatment much educational tact and insight.

When we come to a slippery place in the road, we involuntarily take short steps and become extremely conscious of our locomotion. It is important to prevent the growth of the habit of imagining slippery places in the paths about to be trodden; and even when they are actually to be encountered, it is well to meet them with the bracing effort that comes from the use of a reserve energy, to proceed without too much consciousness of the path, and with as nearly a normal gait as possible. There are sufficient difficulties in the various walks of life without adding to them those that arise from mental prepossession, and that lead to mental inertia.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] This account I owe to Mrs. May Cole Baker, of Washington, D.C.

[12] It should be noted that it is only the classification of occupations that requires so extremely elaborate and artificial a system; the returns for nationality, age, sex, marital condition, etc., are far simpler to record. The editing consists in writing the symbols on the returns, so that they need not be memorized.

A STUDY OF INVOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS

I

Quite a number of delusions find a common point of origin in the natural tendency to view our mental life--the aggregate of our thoughts and doings--as coextensive with the experiences of which our consciousness gives information and which our will directs. The significance of the unconscious and the involuntary is apt to be underestimated or disregarded. We are more ready to acknowledge that in certain unusual and semi-morbid conditions persons will exhibit these peculiar expressions of the subterranean strata of our mental structure--that some have the habit of walking or talking in their sleep, that others occasionally fall into an automatic, trance-like condition, that hypnotism and hysteria and obscure lapses of consciousness and alterations of personality bring to the surface curious specimens of the mysteries of this underworld,--but we are slow to appreciate that the subconscious and the involuntary find a common and a natural place amidst the soundly reasoned and aptly directed activities of our own intelligence. While it is reasonable and proper to have faith in the testimony of consciousness, it is desirable that this confidence should be accompanied by an understanding of the conditions under which such testimony is presumably valid, and when presumably defective or misleading. Sense-deceptions, faulty observation, distraction, exaggeration, illusion, fallacy, and error are not idle abstract fancies of the psychologist, but stern realities; and their existence emphasizes the need in the determination of truth and the maintenance of a sound rationality, of a calm, unprejudiced judgment, of an experienced and balanced intelligence, of a discerning sense for nice distinctions, of an appreciation of the circumstances under which it is peculiarly human to err. A demonstration of the readiness with which perfectly normal individuals may be induced to yield visible evidence of unconscious and involuntary processes, thus possesses a special interest; for when the naturalness of a few definite types of involuntary movements is made clear, the application of the experience to more complex and more indefinite circumstances will easily and logically follow. While the circumstances under which involuntary indications of mental activity are ordinarily given, are too various to enable one to say _ab uno disce omnes_, yet the principle demonstrated in one case is capable of a considerable generalization, which will go far to prevent misconception of apparently mysterious and exceptional phenomena.

II

When some years ago, the American public was confronted with the striking exhibitions of muscle-reading, the wildest speculations were indulged in regarding its true _modus operandi_; and the suggestion that all that was done was explicable by the skillful interpretation of the unconscious indications given by the subjects, was scouted or even ridiculed. It was not supposed that such indications were sufficiently definite for the purposes of the "mind-reader," or were obtainable under the conditions of his tests. Again, it was urged that this explanation was hardly applicable to certain striking performances, which in reality involved other and subtler modes of thought-interpretation, and the accounts of which were also exaggerated and distorted. And furthermore, it was argued, too many worthy and learned persons were absolutely certain that they had given no indications whatever. For a time the view that mind-reading was muscle-reading rested upon rather indirect evidence, and upon a form of argument that carries more weight with those familiar with the nature of scientific problems than with the public at large. But the development of experimental research in the domain of psychology has made possible a variety of demonstrations of the truth and adequacy of this explanation. It was with the purpose of securing a visible record of certain types of involuntary movements, that the investigation, the results of which are here presented, was undertaken.

Inasmuch as the movements in question are often very slight, somewhat delicate apparatus is required to secure their record; the apparatus must in a measure exaggerate the tendency to motion though without altering its nature. The form of apparatus which I devised for this study, and which may be appropriately called an automatograph, is illustrated in the accompanying figure (p. 310). It consists of a wooden frame, enclosing a heavy piece of plate glass (fifteen inches square), and mounted upon three legs which are provided with screw adjustments for bringing the plate into a perfect level. Upon the plate of glass are placed in the form of a triangle three well turned and polished steel or brass balls; and upon the balls rests a thin crystal-plate glass set in a light wooden frame. The finger-tips of one hand rest upon the upper plate in the position indicated. When all is properly adjusted and glass and balls are rubbed smooth with oil, it is quite impossible to hold the apparatus perfectly still for more than a few seconds; the slightest unsteadiness or movement of the hand at once sets the plate rolling with an irregular motion. If one closes the eyes and fixes the attention upon a definite mental image or train of thought, it is easy to form the conviction that the plate remains quiet, but the record proves that this is not the case. The other parts of the apparatus are designed to give a record of the movements of the plate. Fastened to the light frame containing the upper glass plate is a slender rod some ten inches long, bearing at its end a cork; and piercing the cork is a small glass tube within which a snugly fitting glass rod has room to move. The rod is drawn to a smooth, round point; and when in position rests upon a piece of glazed paper that has been blackened over a flame and then smoothly stretched over a small glass plate. The point of the rod thus records easily and accurately every movement of the hand that is imparted to the upper plate, and by the manner of its adjustment accommodates itself to all irregularities of movement or recording surface. This recording device is shown in greater detail in the illustration, and was used to good advantage as a simple automatograph in independence of the balls and plates. In that case the recording part is held in the hand as though it were a pencil, but in a vertical position, and the record plate may be placed upon a table; or for special purposes the plate may be held in the other hand or fastened to the top of one's head. When not otherwise stated, the records here reproduced were obtained by use of the automatograph. Some of the records are noted as having been secured with the simpler device just described.

The process of securing a record is as follows: the subject, standing, places his hand upon the automatograph, with the arm nearly horizontal and not quite fully extended, and the elbow bent in a fairly comfortable posture; his attention is engaged by asking him to listen to and count the strokes of a metronome; to look at and count the oscillations of a pendulum; to read from a book; to call out the names of colors; to think of a given direction or locality, or the position of an object; and so on. He is instructed to think as little as possible of his hand, making a reasonable effort to keep it from moving. To cut off the apparatus from the subject's field of vision and attention, a large screen is interposed between him and the record, a curtain with a suitable opening for the arm forming part of the screen. The operator holds the glass pencil in his hand, and when all is in readiness allows it to slip through the glass tube and begin to write, removing it again after a definite interval or when the record seems completed.

III