In investigating association, we have not only to give a quantitative measure of associability in terms of sensational elements; we must also study (I) the influence of other processes which ehallee to stand in eonseiousness, and (2) the nature of the associative consciousness; i.e. we must note what there is in mind when an asso ciation is being made. The first of these proh lems is illustrated by the over NV might traveler who 'colors' his association by his apprehen siveness.or by the proof-reader who beeonies inter ested in his page and easily overlooks typo graphical errors. The ease is brought under ex perimental conditions by giving an incentive to reproduction under the influence of a suggested idea. If the word 'part' is seen an instant, for example. just after the word 'wine' has been pronounced, it is likely to be read 'port.' The experiment shows us (a) within what wide limits an association may be influenced by the appropriate, momentary trend of consciousness, which thus becomes part-incentive, and (b) it also illustrates the last condition of association named above: the greater power to fascinate the attention and start associations possessed by an idea when it bears a close resemblance to other contents of consciousness. The best way to solve our second problem—the analysis of associated contents—is to make the observer as much at his ease and as free from distracting influences as possible (seat him, say, in a dark room), and ask him to report in outline the associative train which follows from a word or sentence repeated to him. After this experience he is able to fill in the outline by describing minutely the nature and the amount of the associative material, whether made up of visual, or auditory, or other imagery; whether intense or weak; whether clear or obscure; whether full or thin, the number and arrangement of the ideas, the elements carry the association and the changes in affective tone at the various stages of the process.
One other point connected with tht: analysis of associated contents deserves to be noticed. There is a well-marked tendency toward economy in mental functions. The mind becomes expert. as does the body, so that after carrying through laboriously a sequence of processes for some time, the operation becomes gradually curtailed. We think our thoughts out (if, indeed, we do not take them ready-made from our parents and neighbors), and then just use them as counters with a swift. shorthand review, without going through the trouble to 'think' or 'reason' every time we want to know. This mental ellipsis is common in the process leading to association. It is, as John Stuart Mill says. "like a stream which, breaking through its banks, cuts off a bend in its course." If we have the sequence a b c given several times. we become able to pass di rectly to e from a without the intermediate link b being given at all: e.g. alarm—fire-70%c, and then alarm—loss. This is only another evidence that contents in an association form a whole, and not a mere sequence of events. Some psychologists have gone so far as to say that associations may he held together by a link which has never en tered into consciousness at all. The evidence for this is not good, although it is a fact that often the links are hard to find, either because they are fleeting or because they are not at tended to. A speaker's facial expression nr gesture may recall, for example, an event or a place, even if the listener's attention is kept on the discourse. Nevertheless, a full attention
is generally an aid to the forming of associa tive relations.
Beyond the search for conditions of association and the analysis of association, much work has been done on the duration of association and of its elements by the use of the reaction experi ment. (See ACTION.) The time, for instance, is taken for the associating of an object seen or heard, with the idea of another object in the same class, as `cat'—`dog.' The time depends both upon the factors in the association (each of the condithms mentioned above exerting an influence), and upon the individual associating. The individual factor is resolvable into differ ences in ideational type (the kind of ideas auditory, tactual. ete.—which the indi vidual uses with greatest facility), and what have been called "differences in intellectual tem perament." i.e. the tendency to associate general names With the names of individuals (the super ord hutting temperament), as man with Caesar; or individuals with generals (the subordinating temperament), as Caesar with man; or to asso ciate ideas upon the some level of generality (coordinating temperament), as plant with ani mal.
\\ hen we have made a full analysis of the mind during association, and when we 'have a com plete tabulation of the conditions under which association takes place, and have measured the temporal course of association, we shall have solved the problem which association presents to psychology. Even now (and experiment on asso ciation is comparatively new) we know that fre quency, recency. vividness, position, and ability to attract the attention are real conditions upon which association depends; they are the cre dentials, so to speak, which gain for processes a place in consciousness. We are not to under stand by this that past experiences are waiting in the antechamber of the subconscious; but only that by reason of frequent repetitions, or recent excitations, or what not, there is a ten dency for nervous processes to discharge in such and such a way. So that neural disposition de termines the direction of discharge, and this, in turn, the appearance in consciousness, of the as sociated contents. This view of the matter makes it clear why there is no distinct bit of consciousness answering to the associative bond, but only conscious processes standing related. and hence more or less unified. The bond is a figure. More than this, we have set the time relations of the association and have learned that associated contents are now exceedingly rich and now a mere thread; that the mass is now inten sive and now weak, now- clear and now obscure, now directed by a single element, and now by the union of two or more streams of influence. now run through with pleasantness and now affect ively indifferent; that successive association is, like 6N-cry consciousness, kaleidoscopic. picking up here and dropping others there, hut carried always by a common core, so that there is never a jump from one stage to another, never an hiatus within the chain. hut invariably a gradual transition from point to point. These facts make clear to us that the old contention regarding the 'laws' of cont.iguity, contrast, etc., was. after all, a secondary matter, and that it is the analysis of the contents col lected within the association and the factual conditions of association that are of prime im portance.