lection to be given in a public speaking class,
intersperse the periods of impression with periods of recall. This is
especially necessary in preparation for public speaking, for facing an
audience gives rise to a vastly different psychic attitude from that of
impression. The sight of an audience may be embarrassing or exciting.
Furthermore, unforeseen distractions may arise. Accordingly, create
those conditions as nearly as possible in your preparation. Imagine
yourself facing the audience. Practise aloud so that you will become
accustomed to the sound of your own voice. The importance of the
practice of recall as a part of the memory process can hardly be
overestimated. One psychologist has advised that in memorizing
significant material more than half the time should be spent in
practising recall.
There still remains a fourth phase of memory--Recognition. Whenever a
remembered fact is recalled, it is accompanied by a characteristic
feeling which we call the feeling of recognition. It has been described
as a feeling of familiarity, a glow of warmth, a sense of ownership, a
feeling of intimacy. As you walk down the street of a great city you
pass hundreds of faces, all of them strange. Suddenly in the crowd you
catch sight of some one you know and are instantly suffused with a glow
of feeling that is markedly different from your feeling toward the
others. That glow represents the feeling of recognition. It is always
present during recall and may be used in great advantage in studying.
It derives its virtue for our purpose from the fact that it is a
feeling, and at the time of feeling the bodily activities in general
are affected. Changes occur in heart beat, breathing; various glandular
secretions are affected, the digestive organs respond. In this general
quickening of bodily activity we have reason to believe that the
nervous system partakes, and things become impressed more readily. Thus
the feeling of recognition that accompanies recall is responsible for
one of the benefits of reviews. At such a time material once memorized
becomes tinged with a feelingful color different from that which
accompanied it when new. Review, then, not merely to produce additional
impressions, but also to take advantage of the feeling of recognition.
We have now discussed memory in its four phases and have seen clearly
that it operates not in a blind, chaotic manner, but according to law.
Certain conditions are required and when they
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