FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   >>  
e been." [Sidenote: _"Acres of Diamonds"_] You who are a bit vain of your visits to other lands, your wide reading, your experience of men and things; you who secretly lament that so little of what you have seen and read remains with you, behold, your "acres of diamonds" are within you, needing but the mystic formula that shall reveal the treasure! THE MECHANISM OF RECALL [Illustration: Decorative Header] CHAPTER III THE MECHANISM OF RECALL [Sidenote: _The Right Stimulus_] Somehow, somewhere, all experiences, whether subject to voluntary recall or not, are preserved, and are capable of reproduction when the right stimulus comes along. And it is a law that _those experiences which are associated with each other, whether ideas, emotions or voluntary or involuntary muscular movements, tend to become bound together into groups, and these groups tend to become bound together into systems_. [Sidenote: _"Complexes" of Experience_] Such a system of associated groups of experiences is technically known as a "complex." Pay particular attention to these definitions, as "groups" of ideas and "complexes" of ideas, emotions and muscular movements are terms that we shall constantly employ. You learned in a former lesson that mental experiences may consist not only of sense-perceptions based on excitements arising in the memory nerves, but also of bodily emotions, the "feeling tones" of ideas, and of muscular movements based on stimuli arising in the motor nerves. _Groups consist, therefore, not only of associated ideas, but of associated ideas coupled with their emotional qualities and impulses to muscular movements._ All groups bound together by a mutually related idea constitute a single "complex." Every memory you have is an illustration of such "complexes." [Sidenote: _The Thrill of Recollection_] Suppose, for example, you once gained success in a business deal. Your recollection of the other persons concerned in that transaction, of any one detail in the transaction itself, will be accompanied by the faster heartbeat, the quickened circulation of the blood, the feeling of triumph and elation that attended the original experience. [Sidenote: _"Complexes" and Functional Derangements_] Complexes formed out of harrowing earthquakes, robberies, murders or other dreadful spectacles, which were originally accompanied on the part of the onlooker by trembling, perspiration and palpita
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   >>  



Top keywords:
Sidenote
 

groups

 

muscular

 

movements

 
experiences
 
Complexes
 

emotions

 
RECALL
 

MECHANISM

 

arising


transaction

 

accompanied

 
feeling
 

experience

 
complexes
 
complex
 

consist

 

memory

 
nerves
 

voluntary


single

 

constitute

 

qualities

 
stimuli
 

Groups

 
bodily
 

excitements

 

coupled

 

mutually

 

impulses


emotional

 

related

 
Derangements
 

formed

 

harrowing

 

Functional

 
original
 
triumph
 

elation

 

attended


earthquakes

 

robberies

 

onlooker

 

trembling

 
perspiration
 

palpita

 
originally
 

murders

 
dreadful
 

spectacles