Читать книгу The Pelman System of Mind and Memory Training - Lessons I to XII - Анон - Страница 65

22. Each stage in the development of the memory is useful for its own purposes. For instance, it may be necessary to be able to recollect things for long periods of time, or for a few moments only. Business affairs, prices, quotations, addresses, formulæ, and everything that we have constant occasions to use, must be permanent impressions. But in such mental processes as counting or adding, where only the last figure is to be carried in the memory for a moment, errands, remembering letters to be posted, the cards played in a game, etc., the sooner such facts are dismissed from the memory, the better, because, if they were retained they would only confuse the following impressions.

That the long memory is only a more lasting form of the short one may be proved by the following experiment. Ask some person to dictate to you fifty names at random, which you will write down as rapidly as possible, paying no further attention to them. It would probably be impossible for you to repeat the list, and in a short time it would be entirely forgotten; but if you were asked immediately after writing it, whether or not a certain name was in it, you could answer with certainty, yes or no. Further, if a particular name, such as Daniels, was repeatedly asked for, and you remarked its having been mentioned several times, the impression of that name might be lasting, and you would probably find that you would recollect the name of Daniels in connection with writing the list, even after years had passed; but the other forty-nine names would have completely faded from your memory.