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282 Jean Piaget
were made to take complex memory tests, and the results were found to fall into the
following three categories. Firstly, what is retained of the model is essentially that
part of it which has been assimilated to the corresponding pattern, whereas the figurative
memory might have been expected merely to record what has beenperceived.
For example, ten small rulers ten to sixteen centimeters long arranged in increasing
order of size are remembered after a week as consisting of two sets of sticks (small
ones and big ones) or three sets (with ‘middle-sized’ ones in addition, etc.). However,
secondly and more important, it often happens, without there being any new
presentation of the model, that recollection is better after six months than after a
week. (Similar improvements, called ‘reminiscences’, are known in the phenomena
of Ballard and Ward-Hovland, but which occur respectively after one to two days
or after a fraction of a minute). A five-year-old subject who remembered ‘small ones
and big ones’ adds ‘middle-sized ones’ after six months (and the subject always gives
a drawing in support of his description). Another subject who recalled a three sets (a
small one, a set of middle-sized sticks that were all the same, and a large one)
remembered the correct sequence after six months, and so on. In such cases,
memory is therefore improved, due to the fact that it is linked to a pattern that
progresses in accordance with its own organization. Thirdly, ‘mnesic inferences’,
similar to the unconscious inferences in perception pointed out by Helmholz, are
observable. For example, a straight line and a broken line of four match-
sticks each are remembered after a week by five- to six-year-old subjects as if their
ends coincided, which assumes at least six match-sticks in the broken line, but
respects equality according to the criteria of ordinal evaluation (order of points of
arrival) implied by patterns at this age. For the facts relating to all this see PIAGET
and INHELDER, Mdmoire et intelligence, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France,
1968.
21. This term we use to refer to trends that seek to reconcile structuralist analysis (in
the technical sense relating to transformation systems that are capable of self-
adjustment; see Chapter w) with ontogenetic analysis in the strict sense or com-
bined (as in ethology) with phylogenetic considerations.
22. Credit must go to J. Lacan for having raised the vital problem of the relations
between unconscious symbolism and speech, and for thus paving the way for both
a linguistic and a mathematical structuralism. While it is hardly possible for the
non-‘initiated’ to assimilate the solutions he offers, they nonetheless present a fine
problem for the future.
23. C. BURT, ‘Is Intelligence Distributed Normally ?’, British Journal of Statistical
Psychology 16, 1963, pp. 175-190.
24. These three forms of probability are not unconnected moreover (see Chapter vm).
25. Monograph of the Society for Research in Child Development, 1965.
26. In Switzerland, for instance, anyone may call himself a ‘psychologist’ and may
give private consultations and take fees. Finally the Soci6t6 Suisse de Psychologie
had to institute an inter-cantonal diploma, with specializations in various subjects,
which is well considered by industrialists, clinics, etc., but is not officially recog-
nized.