Chapter 61

which the mind places upon any presentation depends in large measure upon the mind's present content and interest. It is an essential characteristic of mind that it always attempts to give meaning to any new impression, no matter how strange that impression may be. This end is reached, however, only as the mind is able to apply to the presentation certain elements of former experience. Even in earliest infancy, impressions do not come to the organism as total strangers; for the organism is already endowed with instinctive tendencies to react in a definite manner to certain stimuli. As these reactions continue to repeat themselves, however, permanent modifications, as previously noted, are established in the nervous system, including both sensory and motor adjustments. Since, moreover, these sensory and motor adjustments give rise to ideas, they result in corresponding associations of mental imagery. As these neural and mental elements are thus organized into more and more complex masses, the recurrence of any element within an associated mass is able to reinstate the other elements. The result is that when a certain sensation is received, as, for instance, a sound stimulus, it reinstates sensory impressions and motor reactions together with their associated mental images, thus enabling the mind to assert that a dog is barking in the distance. In such a case, the present impression is evidently joined with, and interpreted through, what has already formed a part of our experience. What is true of this particular case is true of all cases. New presentations are always met and interpreted by some complex experiences with which they have something in common, otherwise the stimuli could not be attended to at all. This ability of the mind to interpret new presentations in terms of old knowledge on account of some connection they bear to that content, is known as _apperception_. In other words, apperception is the law of the mind to attend to such elements in a new presentation as possess some degree of _familiarity_ with the already assimilated experience, although there may be no distinct recognition of this familiarity.

CONDITIONS OF APPERCEPTION

=A. Present Knowledge.=--Since the mind can apperceive only that for which it is prepared through former experience, the interpretation of the same presentations will be likely to differ greatly in different individuals. The book lying before him is to the young child a place in which to find pictures, to the ignorant man a source of mysterious information, and to the scholar a symbolic representation of certain mathematical knowledge. In the same manner, the object outside the window is a noxious weed to the farmer, a flower to the naturalist, and a medicinal plant to the physician or the druggist. From this it is clear that the interpretation of the impressions must differ according to the character of our present knowledge. In other words, the more important the aspects read into any presentation, the more valuable will be the present experience. Although when the child apperceives a stick as a horse, and the mechanic apperceives it as a lever, each interpretation is valuable within its own sphere, yet there is evidently a marked difference in the ultimate significance of the two interpretations. Education is especially valuable, in fact, in that it so adds to the experience of the child that he may more fully apperceive his surroundings.

=B. Present Interests and Needs.=--But apperception is not solely dependent upon present knowledge. The interests and needs of the individual reflect themselves largely in his apperceptive tendencies. While the boy sees a tent in the folded paper, the girl is more likely to find in it a screen. To the little boy the lath is a horse, to the older boy it becomes a sword. Feelings and interest, therefore, as well as knowledge, dominate the apperceptive process. Nor should this fact be overlooked by the teacher. The study of a poem would be very incomplete and unsatisfactory if it stopped with the apprehension of the ideas. There must be emotional appreciation as well; otherwise the study will result in entire indifference to it. In introducing, for instance, the sonnet, "Mysterious Night" (page 394, _Ontario Reader, Book IV_), the teacher might ask: "Why can we not see the stars during the day?" The answer to this question would put the pupils in the proper intellectual attitude to interpret the ideas of the poem, but that is not enough. A recall of such an experience as his contemplation of the starry sky on a clear night will put the pupil in a suitable emotional attitude. He is a rare pupil who has not at some time gazed in wonder at the immense number and magnificence of the stars, or who has not thought with awe and reverence of the infinite power of the Creator of "such countless orbs." A recall of these feelings of wonder, awe, and reverence will place the pupil in a suitable mood for the emotional appreciation of the poem. It is in the teaching of literature that the importance of a proper feeling attitude on the part of the pupil is particularly great. Without it the pupil is coldly indifferent toward literature and will never cultivate an enthusiasm for it.

FACTORS IN APPERCEPTION

=Retention and Recall.=--The facts already noted make it plain that apperception involves two important factors. First, apperception implies retention and recall. Unless our various experiences left behind them the permanent effects already noted in describing the retentive power of the nervous organism and the consequent possibility of recall, there could be no adjustment to new impressions on the basis of earlier experiences.

=Attention.=--Secondly, apperception involves attention. Since to apperceive is to bring the results of earlier experience to bear actively upon the new impression, it must involve a reactive, or attentive, state of consciousness; for, as noted in our study of the learning process, it is only by selecting elements out of former experience that the new impression is given definite meaning in consciousness. For the child to apperceive the strange object as a "bug-in-a-basket," demands from him therefore a process of attention in which the ideas "bug" and "basket" are selected from former experience and read into the new impression, thereby giving it a meaning in consciousness. A reference to any of the lesson topics previously considered will provide further examples of these apperceptive factors.