Page:Scientific Monthly, volume 14.djvu/44

 is unable to reproduce correctly simple geometrical designs because he apperceives the figures merely as composed of many lines in apparently complex relationship to one another.

How can we reconcile this apparent weakness of memory with the fact that K's fund of general information, as measured by the army test, is equal to that of the average high-school sophomore? Does not the acquisition of information depend upon memory? The answer is that it depends largely on the kind of information. The kind called for in the original form of the army test relates largely to every-day perceptual experiences (common animals, plants, advertisements, sports, etc.). In information involving memory for abstract terms or appreciation of logical relationships, K makes a ludicrous showing. Information about base-ball champions or movie stars is within his reach; historical information is not.

K's success is no more brilliant when it comes to feats of constructive imagination. He was able to draw a clock face so as to show the position of the hands at any specified time, but he could not in imagination reverse the hands. He could not construct in imagination the situation represented by the problem of enclosed boxes. In the Binet paper cutting test, he could not imagine how the notched sheet of paper would look when unfolded. He could not retain or manipulate visual imagery well enough to reproduce the letter code. To think out new combinations of machinery or forces, as in the field of mechanical inventions, appears to be as far beyond him as the ability to manipulate abstract language symbols.

The weakness of K's constructive imagination is also shown in his lack of resourcefulness in meeting practical difficulties like those involved in the Ball and Field problem, the ingenuity test or the Knox Imitation test. The latter is not, strictly speaking, an imitation test, for success in its more difficult parts depends chiefly on adopting the scheme of numbering the positions, as 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., and remembering the numbers. This required resourcefulness is of a kind K can not bring to bear on a new problem. If he were a factory laborer, he could doubtless be taught to perform satisfactorily fairly complicated kinds of routine work, but he would not be likely to devise any new procedure to make work easier or lighter.

In the appreciation of absurdities of a kind which are chiefly on the perceptual level or which involve only the simplest of ideas (absurd pictures), K makes a fairly good showing. He shows somewhat less ability to detect absurdities expressed in language, particularly if ex pressed in fairly long or complicated sentences. To absurdities on the level of the abstract he is of course blind. He would doubtless read without the slightest suspicion of fraud a poem or sermon or legal document constructed so as to contain nothing but absurdity, provided