Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-10-30
STRANGE FACULTY
| OF IMAGE SEEING
| BOYS SHOWN HERE
Half of Pupils in Big School
Found to Have Some Traces
of Eidetic Ability.
EFFECT ON TEACHING
MAY BE PRONOUNCED
Children Who See Withdrawn Pic
ture as Reality Discovered
by Psychologist.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

The strange phenomenon of eidetic
imagery among children is being inves-
tigated in the psychological laboratory
of the Catholic University here.
DR.. John w. Rauth, conducting his
investigations among the 700 boys at
st. Mary's Industrial School in Baltf-
more, the alma mater of Babe Ruth, is
finding that approximately so per cent
of the pupils possess to some degree
this curious faculty which was discov-
cred a few years ago In Germany.
Hitherto 1t has been considered in
America a rare individual popularity,
and DR.. Rauth's work constitutes one
of the first investigations of the phe-
nomenon made on this side OF the
Atlantic.
The pupils at st. Mary's, DR.. Rauth
says, represent a fair cross section of
American boyhood. They cover a wide
range of racial stock, ages, physical
types, intelligence and personality.
Very few of the children represent abb
normal character problems. The Ger
man psychologists have presented con-
siderable evidence that children who
possess the eidetic image faculty bene-
fit by radically different educational
procedure than that commonly fol-
lOWGu III bIlC SCIlOOLS. IL JklC Idt1O VI
such children among boys and girls in
general, in the United States, is close
to that being shown among the st.
Mary's boys, the implications for edu-
cational reform are far-reaching.
DIR. Rauth brought a group of the
"eidetikerS" to the university yesterday.
and a class of advanced students
watched with wide-eyed wonder as the
timid youngsters did stunts that verged
on the miraculous. The eidetic image is
a phenomenon of that largely unex-
plored territory between the physiology
cal and the mental. It Is known only
among children. and always disappears
shortly after puberty. 1t is described as
an intermediate step between the after
image and the memory image, both of
which can be produced with the average
person.
Experiment in Physiology.
The average person looks intently
for about half second on a pure color
for example, red or green. The object
may be a colored light or square of
cardboard. Then the stimulus is re-
moved and the person continues to gaze
intently upon neutral colored back
ground, such as a greyish screen. The
patch of color will remain for brief
interval-only it will be the compile
mentary color to that which actually
was seen. That is, the person who has
been gazing on spot of green will see
a spot of red. This is the after image.
The experiment is common in physio-
logical laboratories. 1t is entirely physi-
illogical, eXplainable in terms of the
seeing mechanism
Now let the average person look in
tently at a picture, trying to absorb
as many details as possible Then
close the eyes, or look into a neutral
background, and try to recall the pic
ture. Nothing actually will be seen,
but by mental effort the various de-
tails can be described from memory.
The picture is called up again, as it
were, inside the mind. The eyes see
nothing
But the "eidetikers" are different.
After the picture is removed they ac-
tually see it again. as a physical real
1ty, on the neutral colored screen.
Asked to describe such a picture they
tell not what they remember but what
they see with their eyes in front of
them. The whole attitude of the child
is one of intent observation, not Of
trying to recall something The eyes
are never lifted, as is the case when
person is trying to remember. The
child's body is tense, the eyes fixed
straight ahead. The picture fades out
suddenly. The child either stops at
once or in an effort to please, begins
recounting details from memory. In
the latter case the difference in the
subjects whole attitude Immediately is
obvious.