CHAPTER VIII
RETENTION AS A FUNCTION OF REPEATED LEARNING
Section 31. Statement of the Problem and the Investigation
Series of syllables which have been learned by heart, forgotten, and learned anew must be similar as to their inner conditions at the times when they can be recited. The energy of the ideational activity which is directed upon them and which serves to establish them is in both cases so far heightened that quite similar combinations of movements occur in connection with them. For the period after the recital this inner similarity ceases. The series are gradually forgotten, but—as is sufficiently well known—the series which have been learned twice fade away much more slowly than those which have been learned but once. If the re-learning is performed a second, a third or a greater number of times, the series are more deeply engraved and fade out less easily and finally, as one would anticipate, they become possessions of the soul as constantly available as other image-series which may be meaningful and useful.
I have attempted to obtain numerical data on the relation of dependence which exists between the permanence of retention of a series and the number of times it has been brought, by means of renewed learning, to a just possible reproduction. The relation is quite similar to that described in Chapter VI as existing between the surety of the series and the number of its repetitions. In the present case, however, the repetitions do not take place all at once, but at separate times and in ever decreasing frequency. On account of our limited insight into the inner connection of these processes we would not be justified in venturing an assertion about one relation on the basis of the other.
Only one value of the time interval between the separate relearnings was chosen, namely, 24 hours. Instead of changing intervals, series of different lengths were chosen for the investi-
