Zapominanie nazwisk: studium nad psychologicznymi podstawami uczenia się i nauczania

A study on the psychological foundations of learning and teaching Research on forgetting brings important contributions to the science of proper teaching and learning methods but its results are theoretically interesting too. The task of this paper ist to explain in what way arise the deformations in remembering names and how these processes are connected with forgetting. Forgetting is defined – a hypothetical process resulting in getting worse of recollections and recognitions as well as in increasing the difficulty of repeated learning. At present there are two theories concerning the problem of memory deformations. The older theory, most clearly presented by Abramowski in 1910., holds they are a secondary product of forgetting. The process of forgetting consists in fading of memory traces and results in recollections becoming more and more fragmentary. The subject while remembering tries to reconstruct the stimulus on the ground of his undistinct recollection and fills its gaps with some material taken from the stock of his general knowledge. The other theory, presented 1922. by F. Wulf, states that the memory traces themselves become more and more deformated with the lapse of time, thus the deformated reproductions are a direct expression of these changes coming in the traces. A discussion on the various models of memory traces leads to the conclusion that the contemporary theories of memory trace are either unlogic (as the theory seeing in them unconscious psychic experiences) or unpractical (theories conceiving them as anatomical changes in the nervous system). The present author proposes the „psychophysical model” of memory traces i. e. sees in them anatomical changes in the brain but affirms that they may be at the same time looked upon as latent contents of previous perceptions on account of the role they play in the psychic life of man. The method of research consisted in exposing optically 3 short stories each of them containing 10 names, mostly family names, to three different sets of subjects individually. Each subject studied only one text through 5 minutes and then responded questions put by the experimenter in such way that all the remembered names of the text had to be reproduced too. Each response was followed by the collecting of introspective data on learning and remembering names. The reproduction was repeated after one week. After the first session the subjects were asked not to think about the texts during the pause. The first reproduction taken directly after the exposure of stimuli showed that the names were mostly reproduced correctly, but among the uncorrect reproductions the deformations were more frequent than other kinds. This bears evidence of some tendency to deform names in remembering them. Introspective analysis of learning and remembering names brought following results: 1. Learning names is a process of perceiving them in which two components are to be discerned, first, the visual sensation (visual picture of the name) and, secondly, the intellectual apprehension of the name consisting of one or more judgements about it egz. about its specific qualities, its resembling some other name known to the subject etc. Both components leave a separate trace. The trace of the intelecctual apprehension may be called „knowledge about the name”. 2. The process of remembering is in most cases an instantaneous and automatic springing up of names in memory but sometimes it consists in a difficult reconstructing names through a series of mediating links that may be of three different kinds i. e. a) uncomplete recollections (fragmentary memory images connected with an unclear „feeling” of the characteristic quality of the name as a whole and of its missing parts), b) actualisations of the knowledge about the name, c) deformations of the name. The deformation of the name may appear directly or it may itself represent a construction built on the ground of preceding uncomplete recollections. In the first case the deformations are names known to the subject from his previous experience and in some respects resembling the name being sought. The deformated reproductions of names (i. e. the final products of remembering given by the subject to the protocol) appear when the subject does not remember the name quite well, so he gives one of the mediating links considering it either as a correct reproduction or as one only approaching the original. This analysis is in the whole in agreement with other descriptions (Giessler, Wenzl, James, Woodworth). It gives evidence that the deformated reproductions of names depend not only upon the trace of the name but also upon the traces of other names known to the subject as well. The analysis of the changes brouht in the reproductions of names with the lapse of time (after a week) leads to following conclusions. 1. The reproductions of names become mostly worse (i. e. less like the original) but sometimes they get better and in some cases they change in an undefinite way. 2. Getting worse of reproductions may consist in their deforming but more frequently it is a process of their getting more fragmentary. 3. New deformations of names appear in connection with reproductions getting better and with their undefinite changes as well. 4. Correct reproductions frequently become deformed while getting worse, uncorrect reproductions (including the previous deformations) become rather more fragmentary or change to complete oblivion. Thus getting worse by becoming deformated cannot be called a progressive change. 5. The introspective analysis of remembering brigs evidence that the main cause of reproductions getting worse must be seen in the progressive dying out of recollections i. e. a) in memory images becoming more and more fragmentary and deprived of the accompanying „feeling”, b) in a gradual extinction of the knowledge about the names, though the knowledge seems more persistent than memory images. Thus the subject while remembering the name less distinctly than formerly tries to reconstruct it and produces new deformations that had not appeared previously as the recollection was still fresh and vivid. New phantastic elements appearing in the deformations produced after pause have their source in a) some other words resembling the name being sought included in the knowledge about the name or not, b) some deformated projects of reproduction formerly created but not used, c) in experiences of the subject during the pause. In addition to these the present author remarks that the memory trace of the name is only a part of a broader trace left by the perception of the whole text and consisting of the knowledge about the persons carrying the names. The trace of the text represents a whole so it is comprehensible that the memory of the names must depend upon the memory of their meaning i. e. upon the memory of the persons carrying the names, too. Some suggestions are given concerning this dependence. The most important of them is that the lack of reproductions of names sometimes may be attributed not to the fading of the memory trace of the name but only to forgetting the bond connecting the name with its meaning. From these the conclusion is drawn that the facts observed in the presented experiments do not support the theory of Wulf. There is no evidence of traces getting deformed, in the contrary all deformations of names can be explained by the dying out of recollections and by the process of reconstruction basing upon fragmentary and undistinct recollections . Thus the older theory of Abramowski finds a new hold in these observations. At last there are brought 1. some suggestions concerning further research on forgetting and 2. two practical rules that may help to learn and to retain names and other words.