intrinsically important in a story are distorted. This preservation of the phrase is one illustration of a very common and important principle that may provisionally be called "the persistence of the trivial."
(b) In repeated reproduction a subject's own earlier versions gain an increasingly important influence as time elapses. Upon its first presentation a story or picture is considered from a certain point of view, or under the influence of a certain attitude. This attitude not only persists, but usually plays a greater part with the lapse of time. To this, no doubt, is due the fact that inventions and transformations, once introduced, show great tenacity, and tend to be formed into related series. In a similar manner, an invention once introduced may easily bring about changes in material which has, up to this point, been correctly reported.
(c) As a general rule, visual imagery tends to become more active the longer the interval preceding reproduction, and, at least in the case of stories containing the report of a number of incidents, increased visualisation provides conditions which favour transformation.
(d) Relations of opposition, similarity, subjection, and the like, occurring in the original, are very commonly intensified. This forms one illustration of a deep-rooted and widespread tendency to dramatisation, and, in particular, all those types of relation about the apprehension of which feeling tends to cluster are readily exaggerated or emphasised.
(e) One of the most important of the general factors inducing transformation in repeated reproduction is the effort to rationalise. This is very prominent in serial reproduction also, and will be defined and considered later.
Each of these factors might be further discussed and illustrated, but as I desire at present to lay chief emphasis upon the results obtained from serial reproduction, I shall proceed at once to discuss the latter.
