Some imaginal factors influencing verbal expression ...

Front matter

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Some Imaginal Factors Influencing Verbal Expression

Chapter II. Mental Diagnosis. The Preliminary Experiments 10

I. Reading of descriptive passages 10

II. Spelling backwards and pronouncing from words spelled backwards 18

III. Letter squares 21

IV. Words that sound alike but are spelled differently 24

V. Word lists , 25

VI. Words that are spelled alike but sound differently 29

VII. Picture material 30

Summary 50

Chapter III. The Free Word Association Test 53 The times 53

The verbal element 56

Parts of speech 58

Concrete imagery 60

Verbal imagery 63

Types of imagery illustrated ' 68

Unanalyzable mental content 70

Influence of kind of word 74

Summary 75

Chapter V. Experiments Dealing with Verbal Expression and with the Mental Processes Preceding It 96

Description of the experiments 96

Objective results 99

The time records 99

Nature, of the vocabulary 102

Literary excellence 106

Mental content preceding expression 107

Verbal imagery 107

Judgments 115

Genesis and form of sentence 118

Chapter VI. Conclusions 123

Appendix. The Preliminary Experiments 130

Bibliography 137

CHAPTER I The Problem and the Method of Attack

This study was undertaken to see if any definite and valuable relations could be established between an individual's type of mental imagery and his ability to express himself in oral or written language.

Classroom experience shows a great degree of variation in the power of quick, effective, and pleasurable expression in words on the part of students who are apparently equally intelligent and similarly trained. Some have a facility in the use of words which seems to be a dangerous thing, a temptation to superficiary and confusion. Others "have the idea but can't express it," or not immediately. The stock reply of the teacher, "You mean that you haven't any idea to express, or that it is too vague for expression," though often, no doubt, an accurate diagnosis, does not seem to apply in all cases. Another explanation of the student's inability to express himself, the effect of which is to make all clear thinking verbal, is implied in such statements in the rhetorics as the following by Arlo Bates i 1 "Every student should learn . . . that it (literary form) is an absolute essential of all clear thinking." A number of teachers, asked what part of the process of thinking they conceived of as taking place in words, answered, in the words of one of them, "Thinking and wording are one and the same process." That literary form is essential to all clear understanding on the part of the listener may be granted; whether it is essential to clear thinking is certainly open to question. Intelligent and observant scholars seem to have had experiences similar to those of the inarticulate student. For example, Jespersen 2 says : "If you have to speak on a difficult or unfamiliar subject on which you would not like to say anything but what was to the point and strictly justifiable,

2 Jespersen, Progress in Language, pp. 23-24.

you will sometimes find that the thoughts themselves claim so much mental energy that there is none left for speaking with elegance, or even with complete regard for grammar; to your own vexation you will have a feeling that your phrases are confused and your language incorrect." Huxley speaks still more explicitly : "When a whole mass of different structures runs into one harmony as the expression of a central law, that law does not come first in the form of words."

In the discussion that follows, the emphasis, instead of being thrown on the fundamental similarity of minds that makes communication possible, is purposely thrown on the dissimilarities (of less importance, perhaps, but too little recognized in English teaching as elsewhere) that make communication difficult. Verbal imagery is not depreciated; nor the importance of language, of communication, to all higher forms of thought; but attention is called to what is not verbal in thought, to relations existing between types of mental imagery, including verbal, and the process of expression. It is hoped that the results of such study will throw light on the principles and function of rhetoric, perhaps on the handling of different types of students in composition.

The motivation that makes for artistic expression, in literature as in any other art, is bound up, to a very large extent at least, with the instinctive and emotional, the sympathetic, side of the individual. 3 But is there nothing in the mental constitution of the literary artist that inclines him to words as a means of expression, as a musician is inclined to musical sounds, nothing innate to account for the differences in individual writers ? Lounsbury 4 makes his "effectiveness" and "beauty" of expression dependent upon the "existence in the individual of an innate ability." Newman, in his essay on Literature, says : "I do not claim for him (the great author), as such, any great depth of thought, or breadth of view, or philosophy, or sagacity, or knowledge of human life, though these additional gifts he may have, and the

more he has of them the greater he is ; but I ascribe to him, as his characteristic gift, in a large sense the faculty of Expression."

After some investigation of the ways in which students learned to spell, it occurred to me that one of these innate factors might well be the type of mental imagery habitually employed. The first step in the procedure, obviously, was to see if sufficiently marked differences of type could be determined to make any correlation with verbal expression feasible. Miss Fernald's conclusions in her Diagnosis of Mental Imagery 5 indicate that such differences of type do exist. She finds marked differences in the character of the imagery used, though they cannot be formulated as simply a matter of better or worse imagery of a certain sort, since the characters appearing are to some extent independent variables. Obvious changes, moreover, occur in the imagery of a given subject with changes in the character of the tests. An adequate statement of an individual's imagery type, therefore, would involve an account not only of the specific characters of the kinds of imagery used, but of the kinds of imagery used in various representative situations, with an estimate of their relative importance. She does, however, classify her subjects into two groups, the first consisting of the more versatile, who seem to use visual-concrete and auditory-vocal-motor forms with perfect ease, and the second of those who have certain especially favored kinds of imagery which they use with considerable constancy.

The motivation toward use of words which comes from a particular social environment, the differences in habits of thought dependent upon kind of work done, or on tastes and purposes, could only be taken into account in a general way — that among the subjects there should be those who are preoccupied with verbal expression, and those who are not so preoccupied; that as many tastes and temperaments as possible be represented. It was hoped in this way to avoid errors arising out of the use of subjects of such similar capacities and training that their results could be attributed to factors other than those under investiga- 5 Fernald, M. R., Psych. Rev., Mon. Suppl. 14.

tion. If certain relationships between imaginal factors and characteristics of verbal expression remain constant through great temperamental and environmental diversities, then the temperamental and environmental factors would seem to be shown to be separable and independent.

The subjects for these experiments were, accordingly, chosen from men and women interested in rhetoric and in science, because it was thought that they would represent varied types of mind, one group especially interested in expression in language, the other dealing primarily with non-verbal material. The first group consisted of four graduate women, one senior woman, and three instructors, men, from the rhetoric department; the second group included two graduates, a man and a woman, and an instructor, a man, from the psychology department, a woman from the zoology department, and a woman from the chemistry department. The average age of the subjects was 27.7 years, the ages ranging from 23 to 33 years. One of the rhetoric instructors, By, had been a newspaper reporter, another, Ev, had been for some years a cartoonist. H, E, By, and Ty are writers of verse. T is a zoologist doing some scientific writing. By and Ty are distinctly musical, Y, T, and B distinctly non-musical. A acted as a subject for Miss Fernald. All were students or instructors at the University of Michigan during the years 19 14- 15 and 191 5-16.

It was decided to use for this preliminary testing the experiments which Miss Fernald had tried and found most successful, with some modifications due to the difference in aim. More emphasis has been put on introspection, and various changes introduced as the experiments proceeded.

The reliance upon introspection, especially where some of the subjects used are not trained to it, may seem to some unjustifiable. But it seems to the writer more and more evident that if we are to discover anything more about the human mind than about the animal this method is necessary; that it would be foolish to throw away the opportunity afforded to us by human speech, that being quite as much a form of behavior as anything else, and, unless the subject is quizzed and led on by suggestion, just as truly a form of reaction to stimulus. The subject's greatest difficulty in introspection is to keep the form of the idea as it occurred during the period he is examining, separate from the development which takes place afterward. Immediate introspection, over a very brief and clearly defined period, decreases this difficulty. 6 What is it that goes on in the mind between the stimulation of the idea and its expression to an auditor in words ? is the question to be answered. For the purpose of this work it is just the course of development of an idea, and the forms that it is capable of taking, that are of interest; the introspection, therefore, in all the later experiments is taken to the end of the expression process, with as careful discrimination of the periods in the development and of the chronological order of it as the subject can accomplish. The conditions, though as far as possible under experimental control, were made as little mechanical, as much like ordinary human intercourse, as possible. This seemed especially necessary in the last group of experiments, where otherwise the conditions of natural speech would not exist. The experiments fall into four principal groups. The first, or preliminary group, is primarily for the purpose of mental diagnosis, and, as has been said, repeats a number of the experiments described by Miss Fernald. All these experiments were accompanied by introspections, which not only supplemented the objective results but furnished practice to those subjects who were unaccustomed to the task.

Preliminary Group

I. The first experiment consisted of the reading of descriptive passages, 7 four read in as normal a way as possible by the subject to himself, two read aloud by the subject, and two read by the experimenter to the subject. The number of passages used and the method were varied more or less; several of the tests were followed by reproductions and all by oral or written introspections. This experiment seemed well adapted to bring out

6 Ach, Willenstatigkeit und Denken. Kapitel I : Methodik. Die systematische experimentelle Selbstbeobachtung.

7 For passages used see Appendix.

such concrete imagery as might be suggested to the subject by words.

II. The second was given primarily to bring out visual-verbal factors, and consisted of spelling backwards, and pronouncing from words spelled backwards.

III. This consisted of a series of memory tests, based on arrangements of Roman and Arabic numerals, letters, and other symbols, for example —

B 4 t

== m XI

iii \ 1 exposed for ten seconds, and designed to show whether visual images were employed in learning.

IV. Experiment IV was a list of words alike in sound but not in appearance, designed to show whether or not the subject was able to use visual-verbal imagery in learning.

V. Experiment V consisted of making lists of rhyming words, to bring out auditory-vocal-motor imagery, and lists of words with a common ending, like -one, to bring out the visual factor that seemed to be naturally involved.

VI. The memorizing of words similar in appearance but not in sound, was intended, like the first part of V, to bring out the auditory-vocal-motor complex.

VII. Experiment VII consisted in reports on the content of pictures and in the analysis of the imagery involved in learning and recalling this content.

When it was felt that a good working idea of the imaginal types of the subjects had been gained, a test in free word association was added, to see (i) if any influence upon imagery of the kind of word given could be detected, (2) what relation the times bore to this and to the general type of the subject, and, more especially through introspection, (3) what sort of mental processes went on during these periods of concentrated attention — for instance, whether concrete imagery having to do with the reaction word ever preceded that word in consciousness. This test consisted of one hundred and thirteen words, chosen largely from what might be called a literary vocabulary, though including a group of simple words from everyday speech, a small group of rare words, and a few distinctly scientific terms. These words were considered to belong roughly to five classes : 8 objective words, nouns and verbs, referring directly to material objects or physical actions (carrot, paddle) ; (2) sensuous words, mostly adjectives, that were felt to be especially likely to stimulate simple sense imagery (scarlet, hum) ; (3) words, mostly adjectives, that denoted characteristics or attributes of a less sensuous, or more complex nature (majestic, humble, severe) ; (4) words, mostly nouns, which on account of their literary history or the circumstances of their daily use are capable, as Pater 9 says, "of stirring a long 'brain-wave' " of associations behind them, that is, words of great connotative power (myriad, turf, treasure) ; and (5) words of a highly abstract sort, removed as far as possible from sensational stimulation (also, function). Some words (prose, omnibuses, broadens) used in former experiments were included; and a good many were chosen because of a likelihood that they would evoke others of the same quotation or stock phrase (braes, tide). A Hipp chronoscope and a modified Wirth apparatus were used in this experiment, and the times were carefully kept.

The experiments of Chapter V are an attempt to examine mental processes from the arousal of an idea to its expression in verbal form, either spoken or written. These experiments, that is, have to do directly with the problem : to discover whether any valuable correlations appear between the results of such experiments and the previously determined imaginal types of the subjects.

The experiments of group III are based on picture postals shown by means of a simple mechanical device, in an attempt to produce fairly natural verbal reactions. In series 1, eight cards were shown and the following direction given: Immediately after the word 'ready' is spoken a picture postal will appear; you

8 It is unfortunate that some of the terms used in classification, as objective, attributive, connotative, abstract, are from a logical or. philosophical vocabulary. They are used by the writer in default of better, to express various degrees of a possible power to evoke a sense stimulation or image.

9 Pater, Walter, Style.

are to respond with the first thing that comes into your head to say about it. When the response came its time was noted by means of a stop watch, the card covered, and an introspection asked for. Series 2 consisted of ten cards in groups of five each, chosen so that the cards of the two series were as nearly similar as possible in interest and in type and complexity of subject matter. The direction for the first five asked for a complete statement, oral, embodying the impression or opinion of the subject. This was followed immediately by a timed introspection. For the second five the subject was directed to turn in his chair as soon as any statement came to mind and write it, following immediately with an introspection. 3 is a set of four cards for each of which a different direction is given, the intention being to get a written description under something like the conditions of theme writing. The time of writing is taken with a stop watch. In 4 the cards are described orally and a short-hand account and the times taken.

The last group, IV, was planned to provide a more realseeming subject matter, and used objects instead of cards. The objects were exposed by turning on a light over a table in the next room, the room in which the subject sat being in darkness except for a desk light. The subject was asked to react with a complete statement to some of the objects, and to write descriptions of others. Some of the objects would be more likely to produce simple sensations, and others a process of identification, of a less automatic sort than appeared in the preceding group. It was felt also that certain of the subjects would be more interested, and thus more fairly tested, by the use of such material.

Literature

So far as I know, nothing has been done upon this particular problem. A great deal of work has, however, been carried on along two closely associated lines : in the study of imagery types and in the study of thought processes. Much has been done upon types of mental imagery, but rather on the forms in which material is learned and retained than upon the expressive side of the process. I am indebted to all earlier workers in this field, and especially to J. R. Angell and M. R. Fernald, whose experiments and conclusions in the field of mental diagnosis I have used freely. The work most nearly approaching this in aim and in method, is that on thought processes done at Wiirzburg by Marbe, Ach, Watt, and Messer; Pillsbury's consideration of the mental antecedents of speech and Crane's study of association reaction, at the University of Michigan.