76 PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL. 



treatment of his data, studied the effect of alcohol on the simple reaction 

 only, and found "no general effect of any definiteness." 



Pursuant to the principles of selection which determined our choice 

 of measurable processes for these experiments, we felt obliged to omit 

 the traditional simple, discrimination, and choice reactions. They 

 seemed unsatisfactory to us partly because of the entire artificiality of 

 the usual reactions and the necessity for extensive preliminary practice 

 before the reaction times have any real significance, partly because of 

 the uncontrollable interplay of interest and attention and the easy 

 contamination of results by arbitrary and capricious, conscious control, 

 and partly because the best analyses of the various processes show such 

 variability of the possible subjective attitudes to the experiment, that 

 one can be sure of similar experimental conditions only in subjects of 

 the most careful training. Even in trained reactors alcohol might 

 conceivably modify the effect of training rather than the reaction arc 

 itself. Finally, variations in the reaction type, such as motor and 

 sensory reaction, for example, may modify the reaction time more than 

 moderate doses of alcohol have been found to do, and the suspicion of 

 such a subjective variation can not be objectively verified. 



Practical reactions involving complex arcs, which are thoroughly 

 practiced and comparable in different individuals without special 

 training, are comparatively few. Of those which might be found, we 

 chose the following for our present series, partly because of the adequacy 

 of the respective techniques and our knowledge of the underlying 

 processes, and partly because of the extensive mental systems which 

 they sample: 



(1) Eye-reaction to a suddenly appearing peripheral stimulus is a 

 thoroughly practiced part of the individual's response to his spatial 

 environment. It samples his spatial adjustments. 



(2) Speech-reaction to visual word stimuli is a thoroughly practiced 

 part of the individual's response to his social environment. It samples 

 the elaborate mental complex of the speech associations, in one of its 

 primitive and most firmly established phases. 



EFFECT OF ALCOHOL ON THE REACTION OF THE EYE TO PERIPHERAL 



VISUAL STIMULI. 



The tendency of the eyes to turn to a suddenly appearing object of 

 interest, whose image falls outside the field of clear vision, is probably 

 the most universal and best practiced reaction of the voluntary muscles. 

 In normal life the line of regard probably never passes through the same 

 point of the field of view for a full second at a time. The records of 

 Judd 1 and his collaborators show that the maintenance of strict fixation 

 is of still shorter duration. Even if the object of interest remains the 



Mudd, McAllister, and Steele, Yale Psychological Studies, 1905, new series, 1, No. 1. 



