In this experiment we tried to examine whether the intuitive description of geometrical figure by words is possible or not.
Exp. I: Subjects of one group explain the 2 sorts of geometrical figures by sentence, and subjects of another group reproduce original figures, reading the sentence written by others.
Subjects as reproducer are 139 students of a technical school.
Each of sentences is selected by 2 psychologists who consider it easiest to understand in the descriptions by 40 students of a nurse training school. There are various differences between interpretations even for the same sentence as shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 in the Japanese Text.
This result is caused by une vagueness of expression, that is, by the ability, method and attitude of interpretation.
Exp. II: Then other new 2 figures are added to the former, and these 4 figures are classified in 2 classes and two groups of psychologists, each consisting of 4 members, describe the figures of each class, and reproduce original figutes by the descriptions of another group.
We can expect from the result that the method and attitude of interpretation may be determined by the character of interpreter.
Exp. III: Again the other 8 psychologists interpret the 8 descriptions gained from Exp. II.
The difficulty of reproduction is due to the vagueness of description, but there are some differences between the attitudes of interpretation caused by the character of interpreter, for even the same sentence may be possible to be reproduced by some, interpreters and not by others.
The difficulty of reproduction is caused by the following conditions:
α) the expressions with contradiction and incorrectness,
b) vagueness of expression,
c) nonsensical and prolix expression,
d) the expression through the subjective imagination of interpreter,
e) the expression using no sign,
f) the expression from whole to part,
g) the expression of too much logical analysis.
The contradiction between f) and g) seems due to the character and attitude of interpreter. As the attitude of interpretation we perceive the following:
α) indignant attitude,
b) sympathetic attitude,
c) occupying attitude,
d) diverting attitude,
e) relinguish attitude.
But the types of description are classified by interpreter as following:
α) analytical type,
b) synthetic type,
c) none logical, vague and prolix type,
d) logical, simplified and well-ordered type.
An observer who has sympathetic attitude can interpret the sentence of analytical type more easily than that' of synthetic type, for analytical type has the margin to interpret sympathetically with speculation and supplement.
An observer, who has the occupying attitude so as to' interpret the sentence literally, gives up to interpret when it is ambiguously expressed.
In consequence the relation between expression and interpretation is reduced to the psychological relation between the describer and interpreter, and so the methods of interpretation vary with the attitude of the interpreter, being determined by the situation of interpretation.
The problem of hermeneutics, that is to find universal validity in the interpretation of sentence must be studied psychologically, for the process of understanding is nothing but the personal interaction between the describer and interpreter.
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