ese associated ideas were
formed. It took a total time of 660 seconds to form the 505 ideas;
that is, at about the rate of 50 in a minute, or 3000 in an hour.
This would be miserably slow work in reverie, or wherever the
thought follows the lead of each association that successively
presents itself. In the present case, much time was lost in mentally
taking the word in, owing to the quiet unobtrusive way in which I
found it necessary to bring it into view, so as not to distract the
thoughts. Moreover, a substantive standing by itself is usually the
equivalent of too abstract an idea for us to conceive properly
without delay. Thus it is very difficult to get a quick conception
of the word "carriage," because there are so many different
kinds--two-wheeled, four-wheeled, open and closed, and all of them
in so many different possible positions, that the mind possibly
hesitates amidst an obscure sense of many alternatives that cannot
blend together. But limit the idea to say a laudau, and the mental
association declares itself more quickly. Say a laudau coming down
the street to opposite the door, and an image of many blended
laudaus that have done so forms itself without the least hesitation.

Next, I found that my list of 75 words gone over 4 times, had given
rise to 505 ideas and 13 cases of puzzle, in which nothing
sufficiently definite to note occurred within the brief maximum
period of about 4 seconds, that I allowed myself to any single trial.
Of these 505 only 289 were different The precise proportions in
which the 505 were distributed in quadruplets, triplets, doublets,
or singles, is shown in the uppermost lines of Table I. The same
facts are given under another form in the lower lines of the Table,
which show how the 289 different ideas were distributed in cases of
fourfold, treble, double, or single occurrences.

TABLE I.
RECURRENT ASSOCIATIONS.
================+=================================================+
Total Number of | |
Associations. | Occurring in |
|-------------------------------------------------+
| Quadruplets. | Triplets. | Doublets. | Singles.|
505 | 116 | 108 | 114 | 167 |
----------------+--------------+------------+-----------+---------+
Per cent . 100 | 23 | 21 |