Kant analyzes memory:
1. As apprehending something in memory.
2. As retaining it for a long time.
3. As immediately recalling it.
One might, perhaps add, as 4: that the memory-image is most conformable
to the actual one. This is not identical with the fact that we recollect
at all. It is to be assumed that the forms of memory-images vary very
much with different persons, because each individual verifies his images
of various objects variously. I know two men equally well for an equal
time, and yet have two memory-images of them. When I recall one, a
life-sized, moving, and moved figure appears before me, even the very
man himself; when I think of the other, I see only a small, bare
silhouette, foggy and colorless, and the difference does not require
that the first shall be an interesting and the second a boresome
individual. This is still clearer in memory of travels. One city appears
in recollection with size, color and movement, real; the other, in which
I sojourned for the same length of time and only a few days later, under
similar conditions of weather, etc., appears like a small, flat
photograph. Inquiry reveals that this is as true of other people as of
me, and that the problem of memory is much differentiated by the method
of recollection. In fact, this is so little in doubt that at some
periods of time there are more images of one sort than of another and
what is a rule for one kind of individual is an exception for another.
Now there is a series of phenomena for which we possess particular types
of images which often have little to do with the things themselves. So
Exner says: “We might know the physiognomy of an individual very
accurately, be able to pick him out among a thousand, without being
clear about the differences between him and another; indeed, we often do
not know the color of his eyes and hair, yet marvel when it suddenly
becomes different.”
Kries[220] calls attention to another fact: “When we try to mark in
memory the contour of a very well-known coin, we deceive ourselves,
unbelievably--when we see the coin the size we imagine it to be, we
wonder still more.”
Lotze shows correctly that memory never brings back a blinding flash of
light, or the over-powering blow of an explosion with the intensity of
the image in proper relation to the impression. I believe that it is not
necessary to go so far, for example, and hold that not even the
sparkling of a star, the crack of a pistol, etc., are kept in memory
with more than partial implication of the event. Maudsley points out
correctly that we can have no memory of pain--“because the disturbance
of nervous elements disappears just as soon as their integrity is again
established.” Perhaps, also, because when the pain has disappeared, the
tertium comparationis is lacking. But one need not limit oneself to
pain, but may assert that we lack memory of all unpleasant sensations.
The first time one jumps into the water from a very high spring-board,
the first time one’s horse rises over a hurdle, or the first time the
bullets whistle past one’s ear in battle, are all most unpleasant
experiences, and whoever denies it is deceiving himself or his friends.
But when we think of them we feel that they were not so bad, that one
merely was very much afraid, etc. But this is not the case; there is
simply no memory for these sensations.
This fact is of immense importance in examination and I believe that no
witness has been able effectively to describe the pain caused by a body
wound, the fear roused by arson, the fright at a threat, not, indeed,
because he lacked the words to do so, but because he had not sufficient
memory for these impressions, and because he has nothing to-day with
which to compare them. Time, naturally, in such cases makes a great
difference, and if a man were to describe his experiences shortly after
their uncomfortable occurrence he would possibly remember them better
than he would later on. Here, if the examiner has experienced something
similar, years ago, he is likely to accuse the witness of exaggeration
under the belief that his own experience has shown the thing to be not
so bad. Such an accusation will be unjust in most instances. The
differences in conception depend to a large degree on differences in
time, and consequent fading in memory. Several other particular
conditions may be added.
Kant, e.g., calls attention to the power we have over our fancy: “In
memory, our will must control our imagination and our imagination must
be able to determine voluntarily the reproduction of ideas of past
time.”
But these ideas may be brought up not only voluntarily; we have also a
certain degree of power in making these images clearer and more
accurate. It is rather foolish to have the examiner invite the witness
to “exert his memory, to give himself the trouble, etc.” This effects
nothing, or something wrong. But if the examiner is willing to take the
trouble, he may excite the imagination of the witness and give him the
opportunity to exercise his power over the imagination. How this is done
depends naturally upon the nature and education of the witness, but the
judge may aid him just as the skilful teacher may aid the puzzled pupil
to remember. When the pianist has completely forgotten a piece of music
that he knew very well, two or three chords may lead him to explicate
these chords forward or backward, and then--one step after another--he
reproduces the whole piece. Of course the chords which are brought to
the mind of the player must be properly chosen or the procedure is
useless.
There are rules for the selection of these clews. According to
Ebbinghaus: “The difference in the content of the recollected is due to
discoverable causes. Melodies may become painful because of their
undesirable obstinacy in return. Forms and colors do not usually recur,
and if they do, they do so with noticeable claims on distinctness and
certainty. Past emotional conditions are reproduced only with effort, in
comparatively pallid schemes, and often only by means of the
accompanying movements.” We may follow these clews, in some directions
at least, to our advantage. Of course, nobody will say that one should
play tunes to witnesses in order to make them remember, because the
tunes have sunk into the memory with such undesirable obstinacy as to be
spurs to recollection. It is just as futile to operate with forms and
colors, or to excite emotional conditions. But what has been said leads
us back to the ancient rule of working so far as is possible with the
constantly well-developed sense of location. Cicero already was aware of
this: “Tanta vis admonitionis inest in locis, id quidem infinitum in hac
urbe, quocumque enim ingredimur, in aliquam historiam vestigium
possumus.” Indeed he deduces his whole doctrine of memory from the sense
of location, or he at least justifies those who do so.
If, then, we bring a witness, who in our court house recollects nothing,
in locum rei sitae, all the mentioned conditions act favorably.[221]
The most influential is the sense of location itself, inasmuch as every
point at which something significant occurred not only is the content of
an association, but is also the occasion of one. It is, moreover, to be
remembered that reproduction is a difficult task, and that all
unnecessary additional difficulties which are permitted to accrue,
definitely hinder it. Here, too, there is only a definite number of
units of psychical energy for use, and the number which must be used for
other matters is lost to the principal task. If, e.g., I recall an event
which had occurred near the window of a definite house, I should have
considerable difficulty to recall the form of the house, the location of
the window, its appearance, etc., and by the time this attempt has
barely begun to succeed, I have made so much effort that there is not
sufficient power left for the recollection of the event we are really
concerned with. Moreover, a mistake in the recollection of extraneous
objects and the false associations thereby caused, may be very
disturbing to the correctness of the memory of the chief thing. If,
however, I am on the spot, if I can see everything that I had seen at
the time in question, all these difficulties are disposed of.
We have still to count in the other conditions mentioned above. If
acoustic effects can appear anywhere, they can appear in the locality
where they first occurred. The same bell ringing, or a similar noise,
may occur accidentally, the murmur of the brook is the same, the rustle
of the wind, determined by local topography, vegetation, especially by
trees, again by buildings, varies with the place. And even if only a
fine ear can indicate what the difference consists of, every normal
individual senses that difference unconsciously. Even the “universal
noise,” which is to be found everywhere, will be differentiated and
characteristic according to locality, and that, together with all these
other things, is extraordinarily favorable to the association of ideas
and the reproduction of the past. Colors and forms are the same, similar
orders may occur, and possibly the same attitudes are awakened, since
these depend in so great degree upon external conditions. Now, once
these with their retrospective tendencies are given, the recollection of
any contemporary event increases, as one might say, spontaneously.
Whatever may especially occur to aid the memory of an event, occurs best
at the place where the event itself happened, and hence, one can not too
insistently advise the examination of witnesses, in important cases,
only in loco rei sitae. Incidentally, the judge himself learns the real
situation and saves himself, thereby, much time and effort, for he is
enabled in a few words to render the circumstantial descriptions which
have to be composed with so much difficulty when the things are not seen
and must be derived from the testimonies of the witnesses themselves.
Whoever does not believe in the importance of conducting the examination
at the place of an event, needs only to repeat his examination twice,
once at the court, and again at the place--then he certainly will doubt
no more. Of course the thing should not be so done that the event should
be discussed with the witness at the place of its occurrence and then
the protocol written in the house of the mayor, or in an inn half an
hour away--the protocol must to the very last stroke of the pen be
written then and there, in order that every impression may be renewed
and every smallest doubt studied and corrected. Then the differences
between what has passed, what has been later added, and what is found
to-day can be easily determined by sticking to the rule of Uphues, that
the recognition of the present as present is always necessary for the
eventual recognition of the past. Kant has already suggested what
surprising results such an examination will give: “There are many ideas
which we shall never again in our lives be conscious of, unless some
occasion cause them to spring up in the memory.” But such a particularly
powerful occasion is locality, inasmuch as it brings into play all the
influences which our senses are capable of responding to.[222]
Of course the possibility of artificially-stimulated memory disappears
like all memory, with the lapse of time. As a matter of fact, we know
that those of our experiences which concern particular persons and
things, and which are recalled at the sight of those persons and things,
become, later on, when the connections of images have been broken,
capable only of awakening general notions, even though the persons or
things are as absolutely present as before. But very unfavorable
circumstances must have been at work before such a situation can
develop.
It is characteristic, as is popularly known, that memory can be
intensified by means of special occasions. It is Höfler’s opinion that
the Spartan boys were whipped at the boundary stones of their country in
order that they might recall their position, and even now-a-days our
peasants have the custom, when setting up new boundary stones, of
grasping small boys by the ears and hair in order that they shall the
better remember the position of the new boundary mark when, as grown
men, they will be questioned about it. This being the case, it is safer
to believe a witness when he can demonstrate some intensely influential
event which was contemporaneous with the situation under discussion, and
which reminds him of that situation.