RECOGNITION (Lat. rerognitio, from recog noscere, to know again, from re-, back again, anew cognoseerc, from co-, together gnos,- cere, to know). An object is said to be 'recog nized' when it appears as familiar. Thus one recognizes an acquaintance or a locality that has been visited before. Recognition stands mid way between the feeling of strangeness or nov elty, on the one hand, and the affective indif ference which characterizes the cognition of a well-worn environment. on the other. Associa tions apart. unknown objects tend to arouse a feeling of uneasiness, or even of alarm; very familiar objects, such as one's tools, or break fast table or writing desk, tend to become in different. taken for granted, while objects which are encountered occasionally produce a mildly pleasant mood which form. the core of recog nition. There is a fourth stage in the affective reaction which appears in tedium or ennui. At this stage active interest has gone beyond its indifference point and has passed into monotony. One is said to feel bored, to be tired of one's surroundings. etc.
It is not always easy to discriminate between recognition and cognition. In fact. the terms have often been used indiscriminately. But it it better to reserve the word cognition for the' identification of well-known or commonplace ob ject, which do not arouse the reeognitive mood, or again, of objects whose kind is well known, although the individual perceived may be un known.
Recognition is closely related to memory (q.v.). In memory, it is a recollection that ap pears familiar. The remembrance of a debate in which one took part, or of a fire witnessed last week. bears the mark of familiarity in the sense that. it comes before one as a part of past experience. In recognition, it is a present per ception—the object before one—that is famil iar. The recognition need not refer explicitly to the oast: the memory always does.
There are two forms of recognition: direct and indirect. (1) In direct recognition there arises at once a belief that the object perceived is known. This belief appears under two forms.
Either it takes the general form, 'this object is familiar.' or some specific form, such as. 'this object is my neighbor's dog, Rover.' In the first case there is hare familiarity: in the second case there is familiarity plus additional knowl edge of the object as a particular object. (2) In its indirect form. recognition is brought about mediately; i.e. an object is recognized by means of its environment, by reason of the surround ings in which it is set. This takes place when the object itself fails to arouse the mood of familiarity and is known only through attendant circumstances either past or present.
Recognition has performed a very important biological function in the history of the race. It is one of the means by which the organism adapts itself to its environment. Like many of the more important emotions—fear, anger. sym pathy—it is deeply rooted in instinct. The ani mal learns to trust that which is familiar, that which has stood the test of acquaintance, and to show distrust in the face of the novel and un tried. Thus have developed. side by side, a pleasant aggressive mood of confidence in pres ence of the known and an unpleasant shrinking mood of diffidence and dislike in presence of the unknown. The refined and modified successors of these instinctive attitudes persist in our moods of familiarity and unfamiliarity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Hoeffding. Outlines of PsyBibliography. Hoeffding. Outlines of Psy- chology (New York, 1 891 ) ; Wolfe, in Philo soplri.sche Studien, vol. iii. (Leipzig, 1886) Lehmann. id., vols. v., vii. jib.. l8 9; 1892) id., viii. (ib., 1S93); Kfilpe. Out lines of Psychology (New York. 1895) : Ward, Mind, N. S., iii. (London. 1803-94) ; Titehe ner, Outline of Psychology (New York, 1899) ; Spencer. Principles of Psychology (New York, 1890) ; Sully, Outlines of Psychology (New York, 1891). For recognition as an experimental method, see 1\ IEMORY.