ASSOCIATION
Whence came the thought that occupies you this moment, and what
determines the next that is to follow? Introspection reveals no more
interesting fact concerning our minds than that our thoughts move in a
connected and orderly array and not in a hit-and-miss fashion. Our
mental states do not throng the stream of consciousness like so many
pieces of wood following each other at random down a rushing current,
now this one ahead, now that. On the contrary, our thoughts come, one
after the other, as they are beckoned or _caused_. The thought now in
the focal point of your consciousness appeared because it sprouted out
of the one just preceding it; and the present thought, before it
departs, will determine its successor and lead it upon the scene. This
is to say that our thought stream possesses not only a continuity, but
also a _unity_; it has coherence and system. This coherence and system,
which operates in accordance with definite laws, is brought about by
what the psychologist calls _association_.
1. THE NATURE OF ASSOCIATION
We may define association, then, as the tendency among our thoughts to
form such a system of bonds with each other that the objects of
consciousness are vitally connected both (1) as they exist at any given
moment, and (2) as they occur in succession in the mental stream.
THE NEURAL BASIS OF ASSOCIATION.--The association of thoughts--ideas,
images, memory--or of a situation with its response, rests primarily on
a neural basis. Association is the result of habit working in neurone
groups. Its fundamental law is stated by James as follows: "When two
elementary brain-processes have been active together or in immediate
succession, one of them, on recurring, tends to propagate its excitement
into the other." This is but a technical statement of the simple fact
that nerve currents flow most easily over the neurone connections that
they have already used.
It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks, because the old tricks employ
familiar, much-used neural paths, while new tricks require the
connecting up of groups of neurones not in the habit of working
together; and the flow of nerve energy is more easily accomplished in
the neurones accustomed to working together. One who learns to speak a
foreign language late in life never attains the facility and ease that
might have been reached at an earlier age. This is because the neural
paths for speech are already set for his mother-tongue, and, with the
lessened plasticity of age, the new paths are hard to establish.
The connections between the various brain areas, or groups of neurones,
are, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, accomplished by means of
_association fibers_. This function requires millions of neurones, which
unite every part of the cortex with every other part, thus making it
possible for a neural activity going on in any particular center to
extend to any other center whatsoever. In the relatively unripe brain of
the child, the association fibers have not yet set up most of their
connections. The age at which memory begins is determined chiefly by
the development of a sufficient number of association fibers to bring
about recall. The more complex reasoning, which requires many different
associative connections, is impossible prior to the existence of
adequate neural development. It is this fact that makes it futile to
attempt to teach young children the more complicated processes of
arithmetic, grammar, or other subjects. They are not yet equipped with
the requisite brain machinery to grasp the necessary associations.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Diagrammatic scheme of association, in which V
stands for the visual, A for the auditory, G for the gustatory, M for
the motor, and T for the thought and feeling centers of the cortex.]
ASSOCIATION THE BASIS OF MEMORY.--Without the machinery and processes of
association we could have no memory. Let us see in a simple illustration
how association works in recall. Suppose you are passing an orchard and
see a tree loaded with tempting apples. You hesitate, then climb the
fence, pick an apple and eat it, hearing the owner's dog bark as you
leave the place. The accompanying diagram will illustrate roughly the
centers of the cortex which were involved in the act, and the
association fibers which connect them. (See Fig. 18.) Now let us see
how you may afterward remember the circumstance through association. Let
us suppose that a week later you are seated at your dining table, and
that you begin to eat an apple whose flavor reminds you of the one which
you plucked from the tree. From this start how may the entire
circumstance be recalled? Remember that the cortical centers connected
with the sight of the apple tree, with our thoughts about it, with our
movements in getting the apple, and with hearing the dog bark, were all
active together with the taste center, and hence tend to be thrown into
activity again from its activity. It is easy to see that we may (1) get
a visual image of the apple tree and its fruit from a current over the
gustatory-visual association fibers; (2) the thoughts, emotions, or
deliberations which we had on the former occasion may again recur to us
from a current over the gustatory-thought neurones; (3) we may get an
image of our movements in climbing the fence and picking the apple from
a current over the gustatory-motor fibers; or (4) we may get an auditory
image of the barking of the dog from a current over the
gustatory-auditory fibers. Indeed, we are _sure_ to get some one or more
of these unless the paths are blocked in some way, or our attention
leads off in some other direction.
FACTORS DETERMINING DIRECTION OF RECALL.--_Which_ of these we get first,
which of the images the taste percept calls to take its place as it
drops out of consciousness, will depend, other things being equal, on
which center was most keenly active in the original situation, and is at
the moment most permeable. If, at the time we were eating the stolen
fruit, our thoughts were keenly self-accusing for taking the apples
without permission, then the current will probably discharge through
the path gustatory-thought, and we shall recall these thoughts and their
accompanying feelings. But if it chances that the barking of the dog
frightened us badly, then more likely the discharge from the taste
center will be along the path gustatory-auditory, and we shall get the
auditory image of the dog's barking, which in turn may call up a visual
image of his savage appearance over the auditory-visual fibers. It is
clear, however, that, given any one of the elements of the entire
situation back, the rest are potentially possible to us, and any one may
serve as a "cue" to call up all the rest. Whether, given the starting
point, we get them all, depends solely on whether the paths are
sufficiently open between them for the current to discharge between
them, granting that the first experience made sufficient impression to
be retained.
Since this simple illustration may be made infinitely complex by means
of the millions of fibers which connect every center in the cortex with
every other center, and since, in passing from one experience to another
in the round of our daily activities, these various areas are all
involved in an endless chain of activities so intimately related that
each one can finally lead to all the others, we have here the machinery
both of retention and of recall--the mechanism by which our past may be
made to serve the present through being reproduced in the form of memory
images or ideas. Through this machinery we are unable to escape our
past, whether it be good or bad; for both the good and the bad alike are
brought back to us through its operations.
When the repetition of a series of acts has rendered habit secure, the
association is relatively certain. If I recite to you A-B-C-D, your
thought at once runs on to E, F, G. If I repeat, "Tell me not in
mournful numbers," association leads you to follow with "Life is but an
empty dream." Your neurone groups are accustomed to act in this way, so
the sequence follows. Memorizing anything from the multiplication table
to the most beautiful gems of poetic fervor consists, therefore, in the
setting up of the right associative connections in the brain.
ASSOCIATION IN THINKING.--All thinking proceeds by the discovery or
recognition of relations between the terms or objects of our thought.
The science of mathematics rests on the relations found to exist between
numbers and quantities. The principles and laws of natural science are
based on the relations established among the different forms of matter
and the energy that operates in this field. So also in the realm of
history, art, ethics, or any other field of human experience. Each fact
or event must be linked to other facts or events before it possesses
significance. Association therefore lies at the foundation of all
thinking, whether that of the original thinker who is creating our
sciences, planning and executing the events of history, evolving a
system of ethics, or whether one is only learning these fields as they
already exist by means of study. Other things being equal, he is the
best thinker who has his knowledge related part to part so that the
whole forms a unified and usable system.
ASSOCIATION AND ACTION.--Association plays an equally important part in
all our motor responses, the acts by which we carry on our daily lives,
do our work and our play, or whatever else may be necessary in meeting
and adapting ourselves to our environment. Some sensations are often
repeated, and demand practically the same response each time. In such
cases the associations soon become fixed, and the response certain and
automatic. For example, we sit at the table, and the response of eating
follows, with all its complex acts, as a matter of course. We lie down
in bed, and the response of sleep comes. We take our place at the piano,
and our fingers produce the accustomed music.
It is of course obvious that the influence of association extends to
moral action as well. In general, our conduct follows the trend of
established associations. We are likely to do in great moral crises
about as we are in the habit of doing in small ones.
2. THE TYPES OF ASSOCIATION
FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF ASSOCIATION.--Stated on the physiological side, the
law of habit as set forth in the definition of association in the
preceding section includes all the laws of association. In different
phrasing we may say: (1) Neurone groups accustomed to acting together
have the tendency to work in unison. (2) The more frequently such groups
act together the stronger will be the tendency for one to throw the
other into action. Also, (3) the more intense the excitement or tension
under which they act together the stronger will be the tendency for
activity in one to bring about activity in the other.
The corresponding facts may be expressed in psychological terms as
follows: (1) Facts accustomed to being associated together in the mind
have a tendency to reappear together. (2) The more frequently these
facts appear together the stronger the tendency for the presence of one
to insure the presence of the other. (3) The greater the tension,
excitement or concentration when these facts appear in conjunction with
each other, the more certain the presence of one is to cause the
presence of the other.
Several different types of association have been differentiated by
psychologists from Aristotle down. It is to be kept in mind, however,
that all association types _go back to the elementary law of
habit-connections among the neurones_ for their explanation.
ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY.--The recurrence in our minds of many of the
elements from our past experience is due to the fact that at some time,
possibly at many times, the recurring facts were contiguous in
consciousness with some other element or fact which happens now to be
again present. All have had the experience of meeting some person whom
we had not seen for several months or years, and having a whole series
of supposedly forgotten incidents or events connected with our former
associations flood into the mind. Things we did, topics we discussed,
trips we took, games we played, now recur at the renewal of our
acquaintance. For these are the things that were contiguous in our
consciousness with our sense of the personality and appearance of our
friend. And who has not in similar fashion had a whiff of perfume or the
strains of a song recall to him his childhood days! Contiguity is again
the explanation.
AT THE MERCY OF OUR ASSOCIATIONS.--Through the law thus operating we are
in a sense at the mercy of our associations, which may be bad as well as
good. We may form certain lines of interest to guide our thought, and
attention may in some degree direct it, but one's mental make-up is,
after all, largely dependent on the character of his associations. Evil
thoughts, evil memories, evil imaginations--these all come about through
the association of unworthy or impure images along with the good in our
stream of thought. We may try to forget the base deed and banish it
forever from our thinking, but lo! in an unguarded moment the nerve
current shoots into the old path, and the impure thought flashes into
the mind, unsought and unwelcomed. Every young man who thinks he must
indulge in a little sowing of wild oats before he settles down to a
correct life, and so deals in unworthy thoughts and deeds, is putting a
mortgage on his future; for he will find the inexorable machinery of his
nervous system grinding the hated images of such things back into his
mind as surely as the mill returns to the sack of the miller what he
feeds into the hopper. He may refuse to harbor these thoughts, but he
can no more hinder their seeking admission to his mind than he can
prevent the tramp from knocking at his door. He may drive such images
from his mind the moment they are discovered, and indeed is guilty if he
does not; but not taking offense at this rebuff, the unwelcome thought
again seeks admission.
The only protection against the return of the undesirable associations
is to choose lines of thought as little related to them as possible. But
even then, do the best we may, an occasional "connection" will be set
up, we know not how, and the unwelcome image stands staring us in the
face, as the corpse of Eugene Aram's victim confronted him at every
turn, though he thought it safely buried. A minister of my acquaintance
tells me that in the holiest moments of his most exalted thought, images
rise in his mind which he loathes, and from which he recoils in horror.
Not only does he drive them away at once, but he seeks to lock and bar
the door against them by firmly resolving that he will never think of
them again. But alas! that is beyond his control. The tares have been
sown among the wheat, and will persist along with it until the end. In
his boyhood these images were given into the keeping of his brain cells,
and they are only being faithful to their trust.
ASSOCIATION BY SIMILARITY AND CONTRAST.--All are familiar with the fact
that like tends to suggest like. One friend reminds us of another friend
when he manifests similar traits of character, shows the same tricks of
manner, or has the same peculiarities of speech or gesture. The telling
of a ghost or burglar story in a company will at once suggest a similar
story to every person of the group, and before we know it the
conversation has settled down to ghosts or burglars. One boastful boy is
enough to start the gang to recounting their real or imaginary exploits.
Good and beautiful thoughts tend to call up other good and beautiful
thoughts, while evil thoughts are likely to produce after their own
kind; like produces like.
Another form of relationship is, however, quite as common as similars in
our thinking. In certain directions we naturally think in _opposites_.
Black suggests white, good suggests bad, fat suggests lean, wealth
suggests poverty, happiness suggests sorrow, and so on.
The tendency of our thought thus to group in similars and opposites is
clear when we go back to the fundamental law of association. The fact is
that we more frequently assemble our thoughts in these ways than in
haphazard relations. We habitually group similars together, or compare
opposites in our thinking; hence these are the terms between which
associative bonds are formed.
PARTIAL, OR SELECTIVE, ASSOCIATION.--The past is never wholly reinstated
in present consciousness. Many elements, because they had formed fewer
associations, or because they find some obstacle to recall, are
permanently dropped out and forgotten. In other words, association is
always _selective_, favoring now this item of experience, now that,
above the rest.
It is well that this is so; for to be unable to escape from the great
mass of minutiæ and unimportant detail in one's past would be
intolerable, and would so cumber the mind with useless rubbish as to
destroy its usefulness. We have surely all had some experience with the
type of persons whose associations are so complete and impartial that
all their conversation teems with unessential and irrelevant details.
They cannot recount the simplest incident in its essential points but,
slaves to literalness, make themselves insufferable bores by entering
upon every lane and by-path of circumstance that leads nowhere and
matters not the least in their story. Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot,
Shakespeare, and many other writers have seized upon such characters and
made use of them for their comic effect. James, in illustrating this
mental type, has quoted the following from Miss Austen's "Emma":
"'But where could _you_ hear it?' cried Miss Bates. 'Where could you
possibly hear it, Mr. Knightley? For it is not five minutes since I
received Mrs. Cole's note--no, it cannot be more than five--or at least
ten--for I had got my bonnet and spencer on, just ready to come out--I
was only gone down to speak to Patty again about the pork--Jane was
standing in the passage--were not you, Jane?--for my mother was so
afraid that we had not any salting-pan large enough. So I said I would
go down and see, and Jane said: "Shall I go down instead? for I think
you have a little cold, and Patty has been washing the kitchen." "Oh, my
dear," said I--well, and just then came the note.'"
THE REMEDY.--The remedy for such wearisome and fruitless methods of
association is, as a matter of theory, simple and easy. It is to
emphasize, intensify, and dwell upon the _significant and essential_ in
our thinking. The person who listens to a story, who studies a lesson,
or who is a participant in any event must apply a _sense of value_,
recognizing and fixing the important and relegating the trivial and
unimportant to their proper level. Not to train one's self to think in
this discriminating way is much like learning to play a piano by
striking each key with equal force!
3. TRAINING IN ASSOCIATION
Since association is at bottom nothing but habit at work in the mental
processes, it follows that it, like other forms of habit, can be
encouraged or suppressed by training. Certainly, no part of one's
education is of greater importance than the character of his
associations. For upon these will largely depend not alone the _content_
of his mental stream, the stuff of his thinking, but also its
_organization_, or the use made of the thought material at hand. In
fact, the whole science of education rests on the laws and principles
involved in setting up right systems of associative connections in the
individual.
THE PLEASURE-PAIN MOTIVE IN ASSOCIATION.--A general law seems to obtain
throughout the animal world that associative responses accompanied by
pleasure tend to persist and grow stronger, while those accompanied by
pain tend to weaken and fall away. The little child of two years may not
understand the gravity of the offense in tearing the leaves out of
books, but if its hands are sharply spatted whenever they tear a book,
the association between the sight of books and tearing them will soon
cease. In fact, all punishment should have for its object the use of
pain in the breaking of associative bonds between certain situations and
wrong responses to them.
On the other hand, the dog that is being trained to perform his tricks
is rewarded with a tidbit or a pat when the right response has been
made. In this way the bond for this particular act is strengthened
through the use of pleasure. All matter studied and learned under the
stimulus of good feeling, enthusiasm, or a pleasurable sense of victory
and achievement not only tends to set up more permanent and valuable
associations than if learned under opposite conditions, but it also
exerts a stronger appeal to our interest and appreciation.
The influence of mental attitude on the matter we study raises a
question as to the wisdom of assigning the committing of poetry, or
Bible verses, or the reading of so many pages of a literary masterpiece
as a punishment for some offense. How many of us have carried away
associations of dislike and bitterness toward some gem of verse or prose
or Scripture because of having our learning of it linked up with the
thought of an imposed task set as penance for wrong-doing! One person
tells me that to this day she hates the sight of Tennyson because this
was the volume from which she was assigned many pages to commit in
atonement for her youthful delinquencies.
INTEREST AS A BASIS FOR ASSOCIATION.--Associations established under the
stimulus of strong interest are relatively broad and permanent, while
those formed with interest flagging are more narrow and of doubtful
permanence. This statement is, of course, but a particular application
of the law of attention. Interest brings the whole self into action.
Under its urging the mind is active and alert. The new facts learned are
completely registered, and are assimilated to other facts to which they
are related. Many associative connections are formed, hence the new
matter is more certain of recall, and possesses more significance and
meaning.
ASSOCIATION AND METHODS OF LEARNING.--The number and quality of our
associations depends in no small degree on our methods of learning. We
may be satisfied merely to impress what we learn on our memory,
committing it uncritically as so many facts to be stored away as a part
of our education. We may go a step beyond this and grasp the simplest
and most obvious meanings, but not seek for the deeper and more
fundamental relations. We may learn separate sections or divisions of a
subject, accepting each as a more or less complete unit, without
connecting these sections and divisions into a logical whole.
But all such methods are a mistake. They do not provide for the
associative bonds between the various facts or groups of facts in our
knowledge, without which our facts are in danger of becoming but so much
lumber in the mind. Meanings, relations, definitely recognized
associations, should attach to all that we learn. Better far a smaller
amount of _usable_ knowledge than any quantity of unorganized and
undigested information, even if the latter sometimes allows us to pass
examinations and receive honor grades. In short, real mastery demands
that we _think_, that is _relate_ and _associate_, instead of merely
_absorbing_ as we learn.
4. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
1. Test the uncontrolled associations of a group of pupils by
pronouncing to the class some word, as _blue_, and having the members
write down 20 words in succession as rapidly as they can, taking in each
instance the first word that occurs to them. The difference in the
scope, or range, of associations, can easily be studied by applying this
test to, say, a fourth grade and an eighth grade and then comparing
results.
2. Have you ever been puzzled by the appearance in your mind of some
fact or incident not thought of before for years? Were you able to trace
out the associative connection that caused the fact to appear? Why are
we sometimes unable to recall, when we need them, facts that we
perfectly well know?
3. You have observed that it is possible to be able to spell certain
words when they occur in a spelling lesson, but to miss them when
employing them in composition. It is possible to learn a conjugation or
a declension in tabular form, and then not be able to use the correct
forms of words in speech or writing. Relate these facts to the laws of
association, and recommend a method of instruction that will remove the
discrepancy.
4. To test the quickness of association in a class of children, copy the
following words clearly in a vertical column on a chart; have your class
all ready at a given signal; then display the chart before them for
sixty seconds, asking them to write down on paper the exact _opposite_
of as many words as possible in one minute. Be sure that all know just
what they are expected to do.
Bad, inside, slow, short, little, soft, black, dark, sad, true,
dislike, poor, well, sorry, thick, full, peace, few, below, enemy.
Count the number of correct opposites got by each pupil.
5. Can you think of garrulous persons among your acquaintance the
explanation of whose tiresomeness is that their association is of the
_complete_ instead of the _selective_ type? Watch for such illustrations
in conversation and in literature (e.g., Juliet's nurse).
6. Observe children in the schoolroom for good and poor training in
association. Have you ever had anything that you otherwise presumably
would enjoy rendered distasteful because of unpleasant associations?
Pass your own methods of learning in review, and also inquire into the
methods used by children in study, to determine whether they are
resulting in the best possible use of association.