Note on the doctrine of memory-traces

An examination, in the light of some experimental data, of Wheeler's rejection of the concept of memory-traces. The objections are mainly against the static and abstract implications with regard to something (i.e. the memorial pattern) which is actually a unified structure in time, for which the initial impression has no controlling significance. The experiment consisted of presenting two 100-word passages at an interval of ten minutes to six subjects with instruction to read twice. Verbatim recalls were asked for at intervals of 30 sec., 40 min., 24 hours, one week, and five weeks. The results show that memory is independent of particular words or sentence structures, although the meaning is preserved. Where particular contents do persist it is due to their relevance. It is concluded that Wheeler's contention is correct, and that the term "trace," if used, should mean not replica but result of the original neural process.