What is "association of ideas"

Idea \I*de"a\, n.; pl. Ideas. [L. idea, Gr. ?, fr. ? to see; akin to E. wit: cf. F. id['e]e. See Wit.]

1. The transcript, image, or picture of a visible object, that is formed by the mind; also, a similar image of any object whatever, whether sensible or spiritual.

   Her sweet idea wandered through his thoughts.
   --Fairfax.

   Being the right idea of your father Both in your form and nobleness of mind.
   --Shak.

   This representation or likeness of the object being transmitted from thence [the senses] to the imagination, and lodged there for the view and observation of the pure intellect, is aptly and properly called its idea.
   --P. Browne.

2. A general notion, or a conception formed by generalization.

   Alice had not the slightest idea what latitude was.
   --L. Caroll.

3. Hence: Any object apprehended, conceived, or thought of, by the mind; a notion, conception, or thought; the real object that is conceived or thought of.

   Whatsoever the mind perceives in itself, or as the immediate object of perception, thought, or undersanding, that I call idea.
   --Locke.

4. A belief, option, or doctrine; a characteristic or controlling principle; as, an essential idea; the idea of development.

   That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
   --Johnson.

   What is now ``idea'' for us? How infinite the fall of this word, since the time where Milton sang of the Creator contemplating his newly-created world, ``how it showed . . . Answering his great idea,'' to its present use, when this person ``has an idea that the train has started,'' and the other ``had no idea that the dinner would be so bad!''
   --Trench.

5. A plan or purpose of action; intention; design.

   I shortly afterwards set off for that capital, with an idea of undertaking while there the translation of the work.
   --W. Irving.

6. A rational conception; the complete conception of an object when thought of in all its essential elements or constituents; the necessary metaphysical or constituent attributes and relations, when conceived in the abstract.

7. A fiction object or picture created by the imagination; the same when proposed as a pattern to be copied, or a standard to be reached; one of the archetypes or patterns of created things, conceived by the Platonists to have excited objectively from eternity in the mind of the Deity.

   Thence to behold this new-created world, The addition of his empire, how it showed In prospect from his throne, how good, how fair, Answering his great idea.
   --Milton.

   Note: ``In England, Locke may be said to have been the first who naturalized the term in its Cartesian universality. When, in common language, employed by Milton and Dryden, after Descartes, as before him by Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Hooker, etc., the meaning is Platonic.''
   --Sir W. Hamilton.

   Abstract idea, Association of ideas, etc. See under Abstract, Association, etc.

   Syn: Notion; conception; thought; sentiment; fancy; image; perception; impression; opinion; belief; observation; judgment; consideration; view; design; intention; purpose; plan; model; pattern.

   Usage: There is scarcely any other word which is subjected to such abusive treatment as is the word idea, in the very general and indiscriminative way in which it is employed, as it is used variously to signify almost any act, state, or content of thought.

Association \As*so`ci*a"tion\ (?; 277), n. [Cf. F. association, LL. associatio, fr. L. associare.]

1. The act of associating, or state of being associated; union; connection, whether of persons of things. ``Some . . . bond of association.''
   --Hooker.

   Self-denial is a kind of holy association with God.
   --Boyle.

2. Mental connection, or that which is mentally linked or associated with a thing.

   Words . . . must owe their powers association.
   --Johnson.

   Why should . . . the holiest words, with all their venerable associations, be profaned?
   --Coleridge.

3. Union of persons in a company or society for some particular purpose; as, the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a benevolent association. Specifically, as among the Congregationalists, a society, consisting of a number of ministers, generally the pastors of neighboring churches, united for promoting the interests of religion and the harmony of the churches.

   Association of ideas (Physiol.), the combination or connection of states of mind or their objects with one another, as the result of which one is said to be revived or represented by means of the other. The relations according to which they are thus connected or revived are called the law of association. Prominent among them are reckoned the relations of time and place, and of cause and effect.
   --Porter.

Association of ideas, or mental association, is a process by which representations arise in consciousness, and also for a principle put forward by an important historical school of thinkers to account generally for the succession of mental phenomena. It is used mostly in the history of philosophy and of psychology. One idea was thought to follow another in consciousness if it were associated by some principle. The three commonly asserted principles of association were similarity, contiguity, and contrast, numerous others had been added by the nineteenth century. By the end of the nineteenth century physiological psychology was so altering the approach to this subject that much of the older associationist theory was rejected.

Everyday observation of the association of one idea or memory with another gives a face validity to the notion. In addition, the notion of association between ideas and behavior gave some early impetus to behaviorist thinking. The core ideas of associationist thinking recur in some recent thought on cognition, especially consciousness.