Psychometric Experiments 137
difficult to get a quick conception of the word “carriage,” because there are so many different kinds—two-wheeled, four-wheeled, open and closed, and all of them in so many different possible positions, that the mind possibly hesitates amidst an obscure sense of many alternatives that cannot blend together. But limit the idea to say a laudau, and the mental association declares itself more quickly. Say a laudau coming down the street to opposite the door, and an image of many blended laudaus that have done so forms itself without the least hesitation.
Next, I found that my list of 75 words gone over 4 times, had given rise to ideas and 1 3 cases of puzzle, in which nothing sufficiently definite to note occurred within the brief maximum period of about 4 seconds, that I allowed myself to any single trial. Of these 505 only 289 were different. The precise proportions in which the 505 were distributed in quadruplets, triplets, doublets, or singles, is shown in the uppermost lines of Table I. The same facts are given under another form in the lower lines of the Table, which show how the 289 different ideas were distributed in cases of fourfold, treble, double, or single occurrences.
TABLE I.
RECURRENT ASSOCIATIONS.
|
Total Number
of Associations |
|
Occurring |
in |
|
|
Quadruplets. |
Triplets. |
I Doublets. |
Singles
. |
|
505 |
116 |
108 |
114 |
167 |
|
Per cent 100 |
23 |
21 |
23 |
33 |
|
Total Number
of Different
Associations |
|
Occurring |
|
|
|
Four times |
I Three
times |
I Twice. |
I Once. |
|
289 |
29 |
36 |
57 |
167 |
|
Per cent 100 |
10 |
12 |
20 |
58 |
