CHAPTER I-THE MANAGEMENT OF THE MIND ATTENTION Inattention. An object acting upon the sense organs may produce (1) no effect whatever in consciousness (total inattention); or (2) a vague and dim representation of itself (partial attention); or (3) a clear and distinct representation (complete attention). Examples of (1) are: Looking at your watch and not seeing what time it was; not hearing a clock which is striking in your vicinity; failure to hear the music at an orchestral concert for a fraction of a minute or more because of absorption in thought; failure to feel the pressure of your clothing. A famous example is the following: "Archimedes was SO absorbed in geometrical meditation that he was first aware of the storming of Syracuse by his own death wound, and his exclamation on the entrance of the Roman soldiers was: "Do not disturb my circles.'" The following experience of Dr. Carpenter, the physiologist, is of the same nature. "The writer has himself frequently begun a lecture whilst suffering neuralgic pain so severe as to make him apprehend that he would find it impossible to proceed; yet no sooner has he, by a determined effort, fairly launched himself into the stream of thought, than he has found himself continuously borne along without the least distraction, until the end has come, and the attention has been released; when the pain has recurred with a force that has over-mastered all resistance, making him wonder how he could have ever ceased to feel it" (Carpenter, Mental Physiology, p. 138.). The case of soldiers unconscious of their wounds because of the excitement of battle is a well-known illustration of the same principle. The teacher should give some tests to show the pupils how little they really see of the objects about them. For example, let them attempt to describe or draw the house next door to their own, or one of the public buildings near the school. The Distinction Between Focus and Margin of Consciousness. In every state of consciousness, we can distinguish between the clear and distinct representations of objects, and the vague and dim ones. The former portion of consciousness is called the focus, the latter is called the margin. "Fix your eyes upon any word near the middle of this page; that word is sharp, clear-cut, and well-defined in vision. Other words near it, above, below, as well as on either side, are visible, but not clearly defined. The rest of the page is also visible and probably a good deal more besides, but only dimly and in hazy outlines. If we fix our eyes on any distant object, such as a church spire, this is in the focus of vision; but it is set in the midst of a wide visual field. The focus shades off into and is surrounded by a margin, in which the objects, instead of being clean cut and well defined, like the church spire, are dim and blurred in outline. Although this illustration is based on vision it is applicable to consciousness generally. Those who have an ear for, and some little knowledge of music, can when they are listening to a four part song, focus their attention on the alto, tenor, or bass, making that the dominant theme, and allowing the other parts to be marginal." (Morgan, In troduction to Comparative Psychology, Ch. I.) In comparison with the margin, the focus is extremely narrow in range. If consciousness at any given moment be likened to a wave, the margin of consciousness will be represented by the body of the wave, and the focus by its crest. The Qualifications of a Good Observer. High powers of observation do not consist necessarily in exceptionally acute sense-organs. Sherlock Holmes (who was not a mere creation of fiction) is not described as having especially good eyes, as the oculist rates goodness. The mother who hears the crying of the baby in a distant room, when no one else has noticed it, need not have a better sense of hearing than do the others. The first qualification needed is the ability, or rather the habit, of allowing limited portions of the object under examination to enter the focus of consciousness in succession, and of building up in memory, as we proceed, a picture of the most important parts thus discovered, placing them in their proper relations to each other. It is because drawing necessitates, to a very considerable degree, this procedure, that it affords one of the best means of training in observation. See the account of how Agassiz trained his pupils, in Halleck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, pp. 94 to 96. A second factor, of equal importance, depends upon the fact that we see, or hear, or otherwise notice only what we are looking or listening for. This involves the presence in the mind of an anticipatory idea of what is about to come. In other words, unless the activity of our sense organs is reinforced by thought, objects will, in the majority of cases, produce either no consciousness of themselves at all, or only marginal consciousness. This mental process is called preperception. The idea in question need not be in focal consciousness. For example, the mother hearing the cry of her child in a distant room does not have in clear consciousness, all through the evening, the idea of the child; the thought is in the background of her mind. To look or listen for a thing involves having at least some notion of what one is about to see or hear. These notions depend upon some previous acquaintance with the object. When you are looking for birds' nests, for instance, you must have some sort of notion of what a nest looks like. Hence the truth of the following statement: "Men have no eyes but for those aspects of things which they have already been taught to discern. Any one of us can notice a phenomenon after it has once been pointed out, which not one in ten thousand could ever have discovered for himself. In kindergarten instruction one of the exercises is to make the children see how many features they can point out in such an object as a flower or a stuffed bird. They readily name the features they know already such as tail, bill, feet. But they may look for hours without distinguishing nostrils, claws, etc., until their attention is called to these details; thereafter, however, they see them every time. In short, the only things, which we commonly see are those which we preperceive, and the only things which we preperceive are those which have been labelled for us, and the labels stamped into our mind. If we lost our stock of labels, we should be intellectually lost in the midst of the world." (James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 443; Briefer Course, p. 235.) A striking example of the truth of the above statement is given by Darwin. He is giving an account of a trip he took as a student with Professor Sedgwick, the eminent professor of geology at Cambridge University. This was prior, we must remember, to the enunciation of the theory of the glacial period in geological history. "We spent many hours in Cwm Idwal, examining all the rocks with supreme care as Sedgwick was anxious to find fossils in them; but neither of us saw a trace of the wonderful glacial phenomena all around us; we did not notice the plainly scored rocks, the perched boulders, the lateral and terminal moraines. Yet these phenomena are so conspicuous that, as I declared in a paper published many years afterward, a house burnt down by fire did no tell its story more plainly than did this valley" (Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. I, p. 49). The more definite our questions, the more completely, of course, shall we observe. The novice at a football game can ask himself no questions about what is going to happen next. In proportion as one's knowledge is detailed will his questions be detailed, and his observations, accordingly, be complete. Thus all our knowledge of the objects in the world about us begins by being vague. The first steps in discrimination, except as we have teachers to tell us what to look for, are very slow and halting. It is the expert who discovers new things about him all the time. As it ordi narily requires money to make money, so previous knowl edge is needed if we are to increase our knowledge through observation, and the larger our capital in the way of knowl edge, the more successful we shall be. The "bright boy of the class who depends solely upon his ability to bring himself to the top will discover, if he continues that habi into his business or professional career, that "brains" are not a substitute for wide, detailed, and accurate informa tion. The Power of Concentrating and Sustaining the Atten tion. The statement that the amount of attention is prob ably a fixed characteristic of the individual may be doubted Certain differences between individuals in this respec doubtless exist, but they can probably be reduced to minimum. Attention is, broadly speaking, a function of interest. Accordingly whatever can be done to strengthen the interest in a subject will lead to concentrated and sus tained attention. In a general way interest depends upon the existence of a certain amount of novelty. But some familiarity is necessary, too, for that which has no point of contact with our past experience or with previous know! edge is not apt to interest. The missionary who was ex hibiting to a semi-civilized people a phonograph just im ported, could elicit no interest in it whatever till finally he suggested to one of them to talk into it. Then they woke up. "What!" they said, "this thing hasn't been with us week and already speaks our language!" That phenomer on had some relation to their past observations. The dull ness of the first chapter of a novel often has a similar basis we do not yet know enough about the characters to be par ticularly interested in what they are doing or saying. The application of this principle to our own life is that the want of an interest in many subjects, with the consequent inability to hold our attention upon them, may be due not to S 0 D |