ause for this lies
in the different attitude which the mixed pages demand from the
reader. The mental setting with which those pictures or the written
matter is observed, is fundamentally different from that which those
propaganda notices demand. If the mind is adjusted to the pleasure of
reading for its information and enjoyment, it is not prepared for the
fullest apprehension of an advertisement as such. The attention for
the notice on the same page remains shallow as long as the entirely
different kind of text reaches the side parts of the eye. On those
pages, on the other hand, which contain announcements only, a uniform
setting of the mind prepared the way for their fullest effectiveness.
The average reader who glances over the pages of the magazines is not
clearly aware of these psychological conditions, and yet that feeling
of irritation which results from the mixing of reading matter and
propaganda on the same page is a clear symptom of this mental
reaction. The mere fact that both the advertisements and stories or
anecdotes or pictures are seen in black and white by the retina of the
eye, and are in the same way producing the ideas of words and forms in
the mind, does not involve the real psychological effect being the
same. The identical words read as a matter of information in an
instructive text, and read as an argument to the customer in a piece
of propaganda, set entirely different mental mechanisms in motion. The
picture of a girl seen with the understanding that it is the actress
of the latest success, or seen with the understanding that it is an
advertisement for a toilet preparation, starts in the whole
psychophysical system different kinds of activities, which mutually
inhibit each other. If we anticipate the one form of inner reaction,
we make ourselves unfit for the opposite.

An interesting light falls on the situation from experiments which
have recently been carried on by a Swedish psychologist. He showed
that in every learning process the intention with which we absorb the
memory material is decisive for the firmness with which it sticks to
our mind. If a boy learns one group of names or figures or verses with
the intention to keep them in mind forever, and learns another group
of the same kind of material with the same effort and by the same
method, but with the intention to have them present for a certain test
the next day, the mental effect is very different. Immediately after
the learning,