Читать книгу Assimilative Memory; or, How to Attend and Never Forget - A. Loisette - Страница 15

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Attention is the Will directing the Intellect into some particular channel and keeping it there. There are virtually two processes involved in Attention. The Intellect is‌ directed into a particular channel, but to keep it there, all intruders must be excluded. To illustrate. A student attempts to learn a proposition in Geometry. To do this he must keep his mind on the printed explanations, and if his thoughts attempt to fly away, he must repress that attempt. To guide his mind into the channel of the printed exposition, he calls into play the Directory power of the attention. To prevent intruders or extruders from withdrawing his mind from the text, he exercises the Inhibitory function of the Attention.

To fully understand what takes place when trying to study, let the pupil recall that there are three sources of knowledge.

First: The Senses carry into his mind reports from the outside world—Sensation—sight of the letters, words and sentences, &c. Second: The Intellect operates on these undigested elementary Sense-reports, or Sensations, and find relations among them. This is Perception, or relations among Sensations. Third: The mind acts on the perceived relations and finds relations among them. This is Reason or relations among relations.

Now the geometrical student in reading the printed instructions to himself or in reading them aloud, might simply occupy his eye, or eye and ear with them and his Reason might soar away to other subjects, climes or ages.

Remember that the Intellect is always active and busy, and the question for us to answer in our own case is—shall it co-operate with the senses or the matter before us, or shall it wander away?

What the geometrical student requires and what we all require in such cases is to compel the Intellect to stay with the Senses, and follow the printed train of thought.

Interest in the subject helps to secure this co-operation. And the Process or Method of study, if it be an Assimilating one, also compels this co-operation. And one of the processes which is most of all effective in training the Intellect to obey the Will and thereby to stay with the Senses (where it is not a case of pure reflection), and thereby to institute and develop the Habit of the activity of the Intellect co-operating with the action of the mere senses, is practice in the use of the Laws of In., Ex., and‌ Con. To illustrate: In reciting the last training example of one hundred words, the Directory power is exercised and then the Inhibitory power is brought into play, and so on alternately. Suppose the reciter has got to “Signatures.” If he does not inhibit or exclude from his mind the word “Petition” he can make no advance. If he dwells upon “Petition” he will never reach “Cygnet.” But if he inhibits “Petition” his Directory power sends him on to “Cygnet,” and then inhibiting “Signatures” he proceeds from “Cygnet” to “Net,” &c., &c. In this most simple, elementary way he exercises and trains the Directory and Inhibitory functions to co-operate in recalling the entire Series, and notice how many distinct and separate times he has exerted the Directory function and how many times the Inhibitory function in reciting a short series. And if he has learned this and other Series as I direct and then recites them forward and backward as long as I require, he is sure to greatly strengthen his Attention and thereby habituate the intellect to stay with the senses and thereby help to banish mind-wandering. And when the Intellect is thus trained into the Habit of staying with the sense of sight or hearing in reading or listening, the geometrical or other student can keep his mind on the subject before him until it is mastered.