galton.org 63
Mental Imagery
63
the whole table at once. The things recalled are generally clearly defined.
Our table is a long one; I can in my mind pass my eyes all down the table
and see the different things distinctly, but not the whole table at once.
Cases where the faculty is at the lowest.
89.
Dim and indistinct, yet I can give an account of this morning’s breakfast-
table; split herrings, broiled chickens, bacon, rolls, rather light-coloured
marmalade, faint green plates with stiff pink flowers, the girls’ dresses, etc.
etc. I can also tell where all the dishes were, and where the people sat (I was
on a visit). But my imagination is seldom pictorial except between sleeping
and Waking, when I sometimes see rather vivid forms.
90.
Dim and not comparable in brightness to the real scene. Badly defined with
blotches of light; very incomplete.
91.
Dim, poor definition; could not sketch from it. I have a difficulty in seeing
two images together.
92.
Usually very dim. I cannot speak of its brightness, but only of its faintness.
Not well defined and very incomplete.
93.
Dim, imperfect.
94.
I am very rarely able to recall any object whatever with any sort of
distinctness. Very occasionally an object or image will recall itself, but even
then it is more like a generalised image than an individual image. I seem to
be almost destitute of visualising power, as under control.
95.
No power of visualising. Between sleeping and waking, illness and in
health, with eyes closed, some remarkable
scenes have occasionally
presented themselves, but I cannot recall them when awake with eyes open,
and by daylight, or under any circumstances whatever when a copy could be
made of them on paper. I have drawn both men and places many days or
weeks after seeing them, but it was by an effort of memory acting on study
at the time, and assisted by trial and error on the paper or canvas, whether in
black, yellow, or colour, afterwards.
96.
It is only as a figure of speech that I can describe my recollection of a scene
as a “mental image” which I can “see " my “mind's eye.” The memory
possesses it, and the mind can at will roam over the whole, or study
minutely any part.
97.
No individual objects, only a general idea of a very uncertain kind.
98.
No. My memory is not of the nature of a spontaneous vision, though I
remember well where a word occurs in a page, how furniture looks in a
room, etc. The ideas not felt to be mental pictures, but rather the symbols of
facts.
