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processes, is more or less a matter of deliberate choice. In this sense, the individual determines to a large extent what his perception shall be. If the notion of purpose be extended to unconscious choice, it can be said that there is no perception that does not arise under the domination of some purpose or thing.

8. Perceptual Habits in Reading

[BUSWELL, G. T., in Robinson and Robinson's Readings in General Psychology, pp. 251-254. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1923.]

The reading process furnishes an excellent opportunity for an objective study of the characteristics of perceptual habits. To the ordinary observer reading consists of a process of moving the eyes steadily along the lines of print while the reader interprets the perceptual stimulations which are registered. If, however, one observes the behavior of the eyes more closely he will note that instead of a steady movement along the printed lines the eyes cover the material by a series of quick movements and pauses. During each pause the eye takes in a certain unit of material and then rapidly moves on to the following unit.

While direct observation will reveal the general nature of these eye-movements and pauses, it is very desirable to sceure a more detailed analysis of these perceptual habits. Such an analysis is made possible by the use of an elaborate photographic device, by means of which an exact record of all the horizontal movements of the eye are obtained. This apparatus photographs, upon a continuously moving film, the reflection of a beam of light reflected from the cornea of the eye into the lens of a specially constructed camera. When this film record is plotted it reveals the exact print in the printed lines upon which each successive fixation pause occurs and also the duration of the pause in time units of one twenty-fifth of a second.

The character of the reading process is greatly clarified by an analytical study of these records. Such a study reveals three outstanding characteristics of perceptual habits in reading.

The first of these characteristics in the span of perception is the amount of material taken in at a single fixation-pause. The size of this perceptual unit varies greatly, being affected by such factors as the stage of maturity of the reader, the difficulty of the material, the purpose which motivates the reading, whether reading is oral or silent, etc. A study of the growth

of this factor shows a negatively accelerated curve of the ordinary type. An investigation based upon the silent reading of 179 subjects selected from all school grades from the first up to the college level showed that the medium number of fixations per 32-inch line was in the first grade 18.6 while for the college students it was only 5.9. One of the fundamental demands of mature reading is the ability to grasp a wide unit of material in a single fixation-pause.

A second outstanding characteristic of perception in reading is the duration of the fixation-pause. Here again there are wide variations, but there is a progressive decrease in the duration of the pauses as the reader becomes more mature. The growth curve, in the investigation mentioned in the preceding paragraph, shows a median fixation time for subjects in the first school grade of 16.5 twenty-fifths of a second, while the median for the college subjects was 6.3 twenty-fifths. There seems to be a physiological limit to the speed of perception, no subjects having been found with a median-perception time of less than 4 twenty-fifths of a second. It is evident that rapid reading must involve either a wider unit of material taken in at each fixation-pause or a more rapid perception of whatever unit the eye does perceive, or a combination of both. A study of reading records reveals that there is considerable independence between these two factors. Some readers adjust themselves to the demands of speed by widening their span of recognition, some make the adjustment by decreasing the duration of the perception pauses, while others simultaneously widen their perception span and decrease their fixation time.

A third characteristic of perceptual habits is the degree of regularity with which the eye proceeds along the line. For immature readers, the photographic records reveal frequent movements in the backward direction. These so-called regressive movements interfere greatly with the efficiency of reading habits. They are generally caused by some difficulty which requires a more detailed analysis from the reader. Children make many such regressive movements; mature readers make a few in reading ordinary material. Where the number of regressive movements per line becomes very large it produces a series of oscillating eye-movements which seriously interfere with the reading process. If such a situation becomes extreme it changes the mental process from one of reading to one of analysis. An excellent example of such a break-down of reading habits is afforded by the reading of Latin. Third-year high school sub

jects have been found who in reading ordinary English material make 6 fixations per line, but when confronted with simple Latin, they make as many as 52 fixations per line, many of which were of the regressive oscillating type. Such a process as the latter cannot be characterized as reading; it is purely a deciphering, analytical process. It is perceptual behavior of the same sort as that exhibited by a beginning reader at the primary grade level. The more mature reader makes few regressive movements and proceeds across the line of print in regular, rhythmic series of eye-movements.

The development of mature perceptual habits in reading involves three principal factors: first, a widening of the perceptual unit until the reader can include several words in his span of recognition; second, the development of more rapid recognition of whatever unit of material is perceived; and third, the setting up of habits of regular, rhythmical eye-movements along the printed lines. This development of perceptual habits accompanies and is a symptom of the more mature mental processes involved in the comprehension of meaning.

The perception of the meaning of what is read does not result in the arithmetical addition of the words making up the sentence. Rather, a process of fusion is involved, by means of which the words are perceived in thought groups, with little attention to their individual meanings. The more mature the reader, the more comprehensive these fusion habits become. An adequate perception of meaning is therefore dependent upon a type of visual perception which enables the reader to receive a sensory impression of the reading material in relatively large units, without the necessity of analysis, and with the minimum of attention to the mechanical aspects of the process.

The printed material is not actually perceived in all its detail by the reader. In the rapid movements of the eye from pause to pause many letters and even words may escape observation altogether. The mature reader, however, fills in from his past experience sufficiently to make the meaning clear and continuous. In this manner misspelled words, or even omitted words, are frequently read as they need to be in order to make the meaning clear. This oversight of minor elements is clearly illustrated when the amateur attempts to do proofreading. The direct vision of the eye is supplemented somewhat by peripheral stimulation, but when the mind is concentrated upon the content of what is read rather than the details of form, the reader supplies what he fails to see in order to get a complete meaning.

This is clearly revealed in eye-movement records by the necessity of making many more fixations per line when the context is unfamiliar or particularly difficult,

9. How Words Become Meaningful

Words have meaning for the individual only when he has had experience in some situation to which these meanings are relevant. Words can detach and preserve a meaning under certain conditions. The condition is that the meaning has been first involved in direct intercourse with them. Words, independent of human experiences, without the object for which they stand, are largely unintelligible. Individuals may be able to use different words and corresponding forms of speech, even in cases where there is no definite idea. Adults, as well as children, are often observed doing this.

10. The Content of Children's Minds

[HALL, G. Stanley, Aspects of Child Life and Education, pp. 23–24. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1921.] (Adapted.)

Hall undertook, soon after the opening of the Boston Schools in September, 1880, the making out of a list of questions which were suitable for making an inventory of the contents of the minds of children of average intelligence on entering the primary schools of the city. Dr. Hall had the coöperation of the Superintendent of Schools and the assistance of four kindergarten teachers. It was the duty of these teachers to question the children in groups of three. Statistics were secured from about two hundred children.

Dr. Hall says that from the tables:

It seems not too much to infer: (1) That there is next to nothing of pedagogic value the knowledge of which it is safe to assume at the outset of school-life. Hence the need of objects and the danger of books and word cram. Hence many of the best primary teachers in Germany spend from two to four or even six months in talking of objects and drawing them before any beginning of what we will lately have regarded as primaryschool work. (2) The best preparation parents can give their children for good school-training is to make them acquainted with natural objects, especially with the sights and sounds of

the country, and send them to good and hygienic, as distinct from the most fashionable, kindergartens. (3) Every teacher on starting a new class or in a new locality, to make sure that his efforts along some lines are not lost, should undertake to explore carefully section by section the children's minds with all the tact and ingenuity he can command and acquire, to determine exactly what is already shown; and every normal school pupil should undertake work of the same kind as an essential part of his training. (4) The concepts which are most common in the children of a given locality are the earliest to be acquired, while the rarer ones are later.

Hall in discussing the result, says:

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The high rate of ignorance indicated by the tables may surprise most persons. ... Skeins and spools of thread were said to grow on the sheep's back or on bushes, stockings on trees, butter to come from buttercups, flour to be made of beans, oats to grow on oaks, bread to be swelled yeast, trees to be stuck in the ground by God and to be rootless, meat to be dug from the ground, and potatoes to be picked from trees. Cheese is squeezed butter, the cow says "bow-wow," the pig purrs or burrows, worms are not distinguished from snakes, moss from the "toad's umbrella," bricks from stone. . . . So that, while no one child has all these misconceptions, none are free from them and thus the liabilities are great that in this chaos of half-assimilated impressions, half right, half wrong, some lost link may make utter nonsense or mere verbal cram of the most careful instruction as in the cases of children referred to above, who knew much by rote about a cow, its milk, leather, horns, meat, etc., but yet were sure from the picture book that it was no bigger than a small

mouse.

11. Children's Understanding of Words

[BOLTON, F. E., Principles of Education, pp. 523-524. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1910.]

The incorrect use of words by children may be frequently traced to entirely erroneous ideas back of them. The wrong words substituted reveal the incorrectness or the narrowness of their apperceptive masses. The right words are not employed solely because there is no conception in the mind corresponding to them. The conceptions that are a part of the mental possession force themselves to the foreground and the words represent

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