THE LAWS OF RECALL
[Sidenote: _The Law of Integral Recall_]
Law I. The primary law of recall is this: _The recurrence or
stimulation of one element in a complex tends to recall all the others._
In our explanation of "complex" formation we necessarily cited instances
that illustrate this principle as well, since _recall is merely a
reverse operation from that involved in "complex" formation_.
[Sidenote: _What Ordinary "Thinking" Amounts to_]
For example, in running through a book I come upon a flower pressed
between its pages. At once the memory of the friend who gave it to me
springs into consciousness and becomes the subject of reminiscence. This
recalls the mountain village where we last met. This recalls the fact
that a railroad was at the time under process of construction, which
should transform the village into a popular resort. This in turn
suggests my coming trip to the seashore, and I am reminded of a business
appointment on which my ability to leave town on the appointed day
depends. And so on indefinitely.
Far the greater part of your successive states of consciousness, or even
of your ordinary "thinking," commonly so-called, consists of trains of
mental pictures "suggested" one by another. If the associated pictures
are of the everyday type, common to everyone, you have a prosaic mind;
if, on the other hand, the associations are unusual or unique, you are
happily possessed of wit and fancy.
[Sidenote: _The Reverse of Complex Formation_]
These instances of the action of the Law of Recall illustrate but one
phase of its activity. They show simply that groups of ideas are so
strung together on the string of some common element that _the activity
of one "group" in consciousness is apt to be automatically followed by
the others. But the law of association goes deeper than this. It enters
into the activity of every individual group, and causes all the elements
of every group, ideas, emotions and impulses to muscular movements, to
be simultaneously manifested._
[Sidenote: _Prolixity and Terseness_]
There is no principle to which we shall more continually refer than this
one. Our explanation of hay fever a moment ago illustrates our meaning.
Get the principle clearly in your mind, and see how many instances of
its operation you can yourself supply from your own daily experience.
So far as the mere linking together of groups of ideas is concerned,
this classifying quality is developed in some persons to a greater
degree than in others. It finds its extreme exemplar in the type of man
who can never relate an incident without reciting all the prolix and
minute details and at the same time wandering far from the original
subject in pursuit of every suggested idea.
[Sidenote: _The Law of Contiguity_]
Law II. _Similarity and nearness in time or space between two
experiential facts causes the thought of one to tend to recall the
thought of the other._
This is the Associative Law of Contiguity considered from the standpoint
of recall. The points of contiguity are different for different
individuals. Similarities and nearnesses will awaken all sorts of
associated groups of ideas in one person that are not at all excitable
in the same way in another whose experiences have been different.
Law III. _The greater the frequency and intensity of any given
experience, the greater the ease and likelihood of its reproduction and
recall._
[Sidenote: _Laws of Habit and Intensity_]
This explains why certain groups in any complex are more readily
recalled than others--why some leap forth unbidden, why some come next
and before others, why some arrive but tardily or not at all.
This is how the associative Laws of Habit and Intensity affect the power
of recall.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _Applications to Advertising_]
There is no department of business to which the application of these
Laws of Recall is so apparent as the department of advertising. The most
carefully worded and best-illustrated advertisement may fail to pay its
cost unless the underlying principles of choice of position, selection
of medium and size of space are understood. The advertisers in
metropolitan newspapers and magazines of large circulation are the ones
who have most at stake. But whatever the field to be reached, it is well
to bear in mind certain facts based on the Laws of Recall that have been
established by psychological experiment.
Most advertisers have a general idea that certain relative positions on
the newspaper or magazine page are to be preferred over others, but they
have no conception of the real differences in relative recall value.
When the great cost of space in large publications is considered the
financial value of such knowledge is evident.
By a great number of tests the relative recall value of every part of
the newspaper page has been approximately determined. It has been
found, for example, that a given space at the upper right-hand corner of
the page has more than twice the value of the same amount of space in
the lower left-hand corner.
[Sidenote: _Effect of Repetitions_]
Many advertisers adopt the policy of repeating full-page advertisements
at long intervals instead of advertising in a small way continually.
Laboratory tests have shown, on the contrary, that a quarter-page
advertisement appearing in four successive issues of a newspaper is
fifty per cent more effective than a full-page advertisement appearing
only once. It does not follow, however, that an eighth-page
advertisement repeated eight times is correspondingly more effective;
for below a certain relative size the value of an advertisement
decreases much more rapidly than the cost. There are, of course,
modifying conditions, such as special sales of department stores, where
occasional displays and announcements make it desirable to use either
full pages, or even double pages, but the great bulk of advertising is
not of this character.
[Sidenote: _Ratio of Size to Value_]
Every year in the United States alone six hundred millions of dollars
are expended in advertising the sale of commodities, and for the most
part expended in a haphazard, experimental and unscientific way. The
investment of this vast sum with risk of perhaps total loss, or even
possible injury, through the faulty construction or improper placing of
advertisements should stimulate the interest of every advertiser in the
work that psychologists have done and are doing toward the accumulation
of a body of exact knowledge on this subject.
[Sidenote: _Risks in Advertising_]
THE SCIENCE OF FORGETTING
[Illustration: TESTING THE MEMORY WITH PROFESSOR JASTROW'S MEMORY
APPARATUS PRIVATE LABORATORY, SOCIETY OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY]
[Illustration: Decorative Header]