Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/87

 74 J. M. CATTELL : ON THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. in the room 8, C 20 times ; 1 of objects identified with the early home B 22, C 19 times. In the other cases this was mostly im- possible, but also here either a very recent or an early association was formed in all except 6 out of the 104 cases. v. We have lastly to consider the time it takes to form a judg- ment or opinion. I choose three cases in which the results could conveniently be averaged. In the first case the subject estimated the length of a line drawn horizontally on a card 10 cm. long, 50 lines being used varying in length from 1 to 50 mm. In the second case the subject estimated the number of short perpendi- cular lines on a card, 2 the number varying between 4 and 15. In the third case the names of two eminent men were shown, and the subject decided which of them he thought to be the greater. Length of Line (150). B 1124 242 1127 154 C 664 124 664 88 Number of Lines (26). 183 57 180 35 319 74 313 45 Eminent Men (104). 667 143 604 80 558 171 522 112 I made rather a large number of determinations with the lines, as I wished to find the ratio between the length of the line and the average error (psychophysical law), and between the error and the time taken up in coming to a decision. I think it how- ever desirable to still further increase the number of experiments before publishing the results. In judging as to the relative great- ness of eminent men, as might be foreseen, the times were shortest where the judgment was easiest, more especially if the subject had already compared the men together (Homer, Virgil). The nature of the judgments is not without interest, but can better be considered when I come to print similar experiments which I have made on a larger number of subjects. The associations we have been considering in this paper are in their nature fixed or limited, and we have concerned ourselves chiefly with the time taken up. The conditions of the experi- ment can however be so arranged that one idea is allowed to suggest another somewhat as in our ordinary thinking. I shall shortly have ready experiments in this direction in which both the time and the nature of the association will be considered. 1 The experiments were made in C's room. 2 For experiments 011 the Limits of Consciousness see Cattell, Phil. Studien, iii. 94.