On the influences of radical and conservative words and their values upon the visual recall and recognition

Abstract

1) A man's attitude toward society may be, in the author's opinion, either radical or conservative, and either of these qualities may permeate value types in social life.
These value types were divided into six classes, namely, theoretical, economic, political, esthetic, religious and social, and from these value types a number of two-character Japanese terms of radical and conservative natures were selected.
Combining and arranging the radical and conservative words into pairs according to the order of merit, the author chose thirtysix stimulus words.
Then the radical words out of these stimulus words were classified into six value ranks according to the order of merit, and the same thing was done with the conservative words.
2) In the experiment, the author presented these stimulus words for recall and recognition in a tachistoscope with respect to each categorical value. A total of eighteen subjects - all college students - took part in the experiment.
The results of these experiments were as follows.
(1) Radical words were recalled and recognized more rapidly than conservative ones in each value rank.
(2) In both radical and conservative groups, higher-valued words were recalled and recognized more rapidly.
(3) With most stimulus words, the time for recognition was shorter than that for recall.
3) The fact that radical words were recalled and recognized more rapidly than conservative ones must, to some extent, be attributed to the fact that college students were used as the subjects.
For the present, the author wishes to point out that (1) radical words were recalled and recognized faster than conservative ones and (2) the higher in value the stimulus words are the more rapidly are they reacted upon.
Therefore, the author wishes to emphasize the point that the individual's social attitude and his bearing for higher-valued words, resulting from past experiences or motivations, have an important influence upon his intellectual reaction.