ABSTRACT
A survey of the literature, however, shows that much of the work carried out by psychologists in this field concerns how people acquire and retain ‘information’. Students arrive for a seminar having prepared the topic and from the ensuing discussion it is clear that nobody is terribly interested in the problem at hand. The topic, its questions, everything about it seems to stand away from him. The ideas are not his, nor do they invite him to take them up, but instead they stand as evidence of the task to which he must address himself. The resulting tenor of the session or of the writing produced is one of a stiff, lifeless presentation, stemming from an apathy which turns and turns again in its own vacuum. The form of address in such a situation is that the student will tend either to report something which he has read in a book, or ask the author a question about it.
