cured by the method of
Reproduction (not given in the figure) shows results which are least
accurate, because most variable. The reason of this is that in drawing
the squares to reproduce the one remembered, the student is
influenced by the size of the paper he uses, by the varying accuracy
of his control over his hand and arm (the results vary, for example,
according as he uses his right or left hand), and by all sorts of
associations with square objects which may at the time be in his mind.
In short, this method gives his memory of the square a chance to be
fully assimilated to his current mental state during the interval, and
there is no corrective outside of him to keep him true.

That this difficulty is a real one no one who has examined students
will be disposed to deny. When we ask them to reproduce what the
text-book or the professor's lectures have taught, we also ask them to
express themselves accurately. Now the science of correct expression
is a thing in which the average student has had no training. With his
difficulty in remembering is connected his difficulty of expression;
and with it all goes a certain embarrassment, due to responsibility,
personal fear, and dread of disgrace. So the results finally obtained
by this method are really very complex.

One of the curves, that given by the method of Selection (I), also
shows memory to be interfered with by a certain influence. We saw in
connection with the experiments reported above that, even in the most
elementary arrangements of squares in the visual fields, an element of
contrast comes in to interfere with our judgment of size. This we find
confirmed in these experiments when the method of Selection is used.
By this method we show a number of squares side by side, asking the
individual to select the one he saw before. All the squares, being
shown at once, come into contrast with one another on the background;
and so his judgment of the size of the one he remembers is distorted.
This, again, is a real influence in our mental lives, leading to
actual illusion. An unscrupulous lawyer may gradually modify the story
which his client or a witness tells by constantly adding to what is
really remembered, other details so expertly contrasted with the
facts, or so neatly interposed among them, that the witness gradually
incorporates them in his memory and so testifies more nearly as the
lawyer desires. In our daily lives another element of contrast is also
very