We may shed light on all these considerations if we compare what
happens when we remember the face of someone who enters our room, when we
recognize him as Mr.
So-and
-so, – – when we compare what really
happens in such cases with the representation we are sometimes inclined
to make of the events.
137.
For here we are often obsessed by a primitive conception,
viz., that we are comparing the man we see with a memory
image in our mind and we find the two to agree.
I.e., we are representing
“recognizing someone” as a process of identification by
means of a picture (as a criminal is identified by his photo.)
I needn't say that in most cases in which we recognize
someone no comparison between him and a mental picture takes
place.
We are, of course, tempted to give this description by the fact that
there are memory images.
Very often, for instance, such an image comes before our mind
immediately
after having recognized someone.
I see him as he stood when we last saw each other ten years
ago.