Page:Memory; how to develop, train, and use it - Atkinson - 1919.djvu/82

76 ceding chapter, some forms of memory systems have been based on this law. If you will recall some house or room in which you have been, you will find that you will remember one object after another, in the order of the relative positions, or contiguity in space, or position. Beginning with the front hall, you may travel in memory from one room to another, recalling each with the objects it contains, according to the degree of attention you bestowed upon them originally. Kay says of association by contiguity: “It is on this principle of contiguity that mnemonical systems are constructed, as when what we wish to remember is associated in the mind with a certain object or locality, the ideas associated will at once come up; or when each word or idea is associated with the one immediately preceding it, so that when the one is recalled the other comes up along with it, and thus long lists of names or long passages of books can be readily learnt by heart.”

From the foregoing, it will be seen that it is of great importance that we correlate our