pressed in the question, how
we learn and remember. This large problem breaks up, on analysis, into
four subordinate questions: how we commit to memory, how we retain
what has been committed to memory, how we get it back when we want it,
and how we know that what we now get back is really what we formerly
committed to memory. In the case of a person's name which we wish to
remember, how do we "fix it in mind", how do we carry it around with
us when we are not thinking of it, how do we call it up when needed,
and what assures us that we have called up the right name? The four
problems may be named those of

(1) Memorizing, or learning,
(2) Retention
(3) Recall
(4) Recognition

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The Process of Memorizing

As memorizing is one sort of learning, what we have found in the
preceding chapter regarding the learning process should throw light on
our present problem. We found animals to learn by doing, and man by
doing and also by observation or observation combined with doing.
Observation is itself a form of doing, a mental reaction as
distinguished from a purely passive or receptive state; so that
learning is always active. Observation we found to be of great
assistance, both by way of hastening the learning process, and by way
of making what is learned more available for future use. Our previous
studies of learning thus lead us to inquire whether committing to
memory may not consist partly in rehearsing what we wish to learn, and
partly in observing it. Learning by rote, or by merely repeating a
performance over and over again, is, indeed, a fact; and observant
study is also a fact.

Let us see how learning is actually done, as indicated by laboratory
experiments. The psychologist experiments a great deal with the
_memorizing of nonsense material_, because the process can be better
observed here, from the beginning, than when sensible material is
learned. Suppose a list of twenty one-place numbers is to be studied
till it can be recited straight through. The learner may go at it
simply by "doing", which means here by reading the list again and
again, in the hope that it will finally stick. This pure rote learning
will perhaps do the job, but it is slow and inefficient. Usually the
learner goes to work in quite a different way. He observes various
facts about the list. He notices what numbers occur at the beginning
and end, and perhaps in other definite positions. He may group the
digits into two-place o