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PSYChOlOgy 257
nothing more than the pattern itself. When biologists use the term ‘memory’
in the first of the three senses that we have defined, they are in fact raising the
great problem of how what is acquired is organized, and, when speaking of the
retention of non-hereditary information, they give us hope of discovering or-
ganizations similar - but in the phenotypic context - to those of codings of
hereditary information (hence the interest of the hypothesis that the RNA must
be complete for the information acquired to be retained).
From the psychological point of view, the problem of the retention of habit
patterns or of the patterns of the intelligence is therefore identical with that
of their formation, and we have just spoken about it in connexion with learn-
ing. The problem of ‘psychological memory in the strict sense’, on the other
hand, presents a number of difficulties and is currently fast evolving. It should
first be noted that there is a big difference of level between memory involving
recognition (as defined above) and memory involving recall: the former is
observable in invertebrates and even in lower organisms (since conditioning
assumes recognition of the stimulus), whereas recall seems to be linked to the
semiotic function (mental images as representative symbols and language) and
is therefore only possible in the human being from one and a half to two years of
age and probably in anthropoids. But between these two extremes, which are
generally the only ones to be considered, the investigations carried out in
Geneva revealed an intermediate form in children, which is the memory of
reconstruction : reconstructing a configuration with the same material, which
involves a certain recognition of indices, but which also constitutes a kind of
recall, only in action and not in memory images. The simplest expression of
reconstructive memory is imitation itself, and such memory can therefore be
regarded as appearing in this form at the very least in birds (and probablyin
bees).
As to how memories are retained, there is probably always a certain amount
of reconstruction (at least as far as the sequence of events is concerned), which
is borne out, for example, by inaccurate memories that are considered to be true
by the subject until they are checked, and by the well-known inaccuracy of
evidence, which generally inclines towards the most probable. However, Pen-
field was able to demonstrate, in the course of spectacularexperiments, thepossi-
bility of reviving memories by electrically stimulating the temporal lobes, which
proves that there is some retention, which is not imcompatible, moreover, with
the part supposedly played by reconstruction.
In fact, the lesser forms of memory (in the strict sense) are always linked to a
certain retention of patterns : sensori-motor habits and sensori-motor intelli-
gence continually involve recognition of significant indices, and recognition
memory is then plainly linked to the patterns of which it constitutes in this
case the figurative or discernible aspect. Reconstructive memory, for its part, is
linked to action, which again means to certain patterns. As to the recall memory
which is therefore at the higher level characterized by representation or thought,
it is largely free of the patterns of action, but one may ask to what extent is it
linked to those of the intelligen~e.~~
In short, the position is the same as regards memory and learning alike, which