第94章 ASSOCIATIONS.(6)

15a. This influence of complications may be demonstrated experimentally. If we take a number of disks that are alike in all other respects, but differ in color from white through various shades of grey to black, and present them to view once, so long as only five, shades are used (white, black, and three shades of grey) each disk can be easily recognized again. But when more shades are used, this is no longer possible. It is very natural to surmise that this fact is related to the existence of five familiar names, white, light grey, grey, dark grey and black. This view is confirmed by the fact that by purposely using a larger number of names more shades (even as many as nine) axe recognized.

In [p. 239] such experiments the complication may be clearly observed, but it is not necessarily so, especially for the five ordinary shades.

As a rule the name is here thought of after the act of recognition proper is passed.

16. The observations discussed also show what the conditions are under which a recognition may pass from a simultaneous to a successive association. If a certain interval elapses before the elements of the earlier idea which gradually rise in consciousness, can produce a distinct feeling of familiarity, the whole process divides into two acts: into the perception and the recognition. The first is connected with the ordinary simultaneous assimilations only, while in the second the obscure, unassimilated elements of the earlier idea show their influence.

The division between the parts is, accordingly, more distinct the greater the difference between the earlier impression and the new one. In such a case, not only is there usually a long period of noticeable inhibition between perception and recognition, but certain additional apperceptive processes, namely the processes of voluntary attention that take place in the state of recollection, also come to the aid of the association.

As a special form of this kind of process we have the phenomenon called "mediate recognition". This consists in the recognition of an object, not through its own attributes, but through some accompanying mark or other, which stands in a chance connection with it, as, for example, when a person is recognized because of his companion. Between such a case and a case of immediate recognition there is no essential psychological difference.

For even those characteristics that do not belong to the recognized object in itself, still belong to the whole complex of ideational elements that help in the preparation and final carrying out of the association. And yet, as we should naturally expect, the retardation which divides the whole recognition into two ideational processes, [p. 240] and often leads to the cooperation of voluntary recollection generally appears in its most evident form in mediate recognitions.

17. This simple process of recognition which takes place when we meet again an object that has been perceived once before, is a starting point for the development of various other associative processes, both those which like itself stand on the boundary between simultaneous and successive associations, and those in which the retardation in the form of assimilations and complications that leads to the success processes, is still more clearly marked. Thus, the recognition of an object that has often been perceived is easier and, therefore, as a rule an instantaneous process, which is also more like the ordinary assimilation because the feeling of familiarity is much less intense. Sensible cognition differs, generally but little from the recognition of single familiar objects. The logical distinction between the two concepts consist in the fact that recognition means the establishment of individual identity of the newly perceived with a formerly perceived object, while cognition is the subsumption of object under a familiar concept. Still, there is no real logical subsumption in a process of sensible cognition any more there is a fully developed class-concept under which the subsumption could be made. The psychological equivalent of such a subsumption is to be found in this case in the process of relating the impression in question to an indefinitely large number of objects.

This presupposes an earlier perception of various objects which agree only in certain particular properties, so that the process of cognition approaches the ordinary assimilation more and more in its psychological character the more familiar the class to which the, perceived object belongs, and the more it agrees with the general characteristics of the class. In equal measure the [p. 241] feelings peculiar to the processes of cognition and recognition decrease and finally disappear entirely, so that when we meet very familiar objects we do not speak of a cognition at all. The process of cognition becomes evident only when the assimilation is hindered in some way, either because the perception of the class of objects in question has become unusual, or because the single object shows some unique characteristics. In such a case the simultaneous association may become successive by the separation of perception and cognition into two successive processes. Just in proportion as this happens, we have a specific feeling of cognition which is indeed related to the feeling of familiarity, but, as a result of the different conditions for the rise of the two, differs from it, especially in its temporal course. b. Memory-processes.