RECOGNITION is the third stage reached in the development of memory. Granted an image reproduced, a representation, it is then recognized. Representations are "accompanied," says Locke, "with an additional perception (feeling) indicating that they are not new, that they have been before experienced. This is ordinarily called recognition." This additional fact of recognition, however, does not always accompany revived images, and by the study of the cases in which it is absent we are able to learn what recognition is.
Feeling of Familiarity. In a general view of recognition from the standpoint of common consciousness it consists in the feeling of familiarity with which an image or object affects us. We say feeling, since the recognition, in itself, accompanies the act of knowledge in which the object or image is again presented; that is, reproduction is assumed in recognition. This feeling of familiarity is vague and often misplaced, and ordinarily goes unanalyzed.
Distinction between Recognition of an Object and of an Image. The means by which recognition arises vary as the recognition is of an object or of an image. In the case of the second perception of an object its recognition is probably accomplished by means of an image which is already recognized. We have a comparison between the percept and the image, and feel them the same or
____________________-149-
