Page:Memory (1913).djvu/39

 incidental opportunity was afforded for verifying and more accurately defining that which had been foreseen and which has just been explained with regard to their interrelation. When the prescribed rhythm of 150 strokes per minute was precisely maintained, each syllable would take 0.4 second; and when the simple reading of the series was interrupted by attempts to recite it by heart, the unavoidable hesitations would lengthen the time by small but fairly uniform amounts. This, however, did not hold true with any exactness; on the contrary, the following modifications appeared.

When the direct reading of the series predominated, a certain forcing, an acceleration of the rhythm, occurred which, without coming to consciousness, on the whole lowered the time for each syllable below the standard of 0.4 sec.

When there was interchange between reading and reciting, however, the lengthening of the time was not in general constant, but was greater with the longer series. In this case, since the difficulty increases very rapidly with increasing length of the series, there occurs a slowing of the tempo, again involuntary and not directly noticeable. Both are illustrated by the following table.

As soon as this direction of deviation from exact proportionality was noticed there appeared in the learning a certain conscious reaction against it.