FREE ASSOCIATION. 



119 



The present subjects show more egocentric reactions than others in 

 Wells's experience, which probably, like their longer reaction-times, is a 

 function of their greater education. There are no extremes save in the 

 case of Subject IX, who is not strictly comparable, but the average is 

 higher. A conspicuous way in which these results differ from any 

 other that Wells has studied is in respect to the supraordinate and 

 contrast reactions. There has been elsewhere a strong negative corre- 

 lation between these, but here they are both practically absent. 



The results were examined to see if the normal performance was in 

 any way affected by alcohol. The main situation is depicted in the 

 curves of figure 24, in which the supraordinate and contrast associa- 

 tions are obviously too few for significant comparison between normal 

 and alcohol days. The letters on the left of the figure represent the 

 various association categories as explained above; Eg. means egocen- 

 tric; Su., supraordinate; Co., contrast; M., miscellaneous; and S. H., 

 speech-habit. The plotted lines indicate the number of associations 

 under each category that occurred in each of the six experimental 

 periods (A-F) of each experimental day for the subjects II, III, IV, 

 VI, VII, IX. The first and last normal days are represented by the 

 solid line and the line of dashes, respectively. The day on which dose 

 A was given is shown by a dotted line ; dose B by the line of dots and 

 dashes. 



TABLE 15. Effect of alcohol on the miscellaneous and speech-habit associations. 



Do the curves for the alcohol days differ in any characteristic way 

 from those for the non-alcohol days? Subject IX shows a fairly con- 

 sistent increase in the number of reactions classified under the category 

 of speech-habit. Rlidin, 1 working with much larger doses and with 

 the "continuous" form of the association experiment, reports an 

 increase in the " outer" associations, but his conception of this category 

 is much broader than what is here formulated as speech-habit. He 

 quotes observations to the same effect by Fiirer, 2 who employed the 

 discrete association method as here. It is the general result one would 

 expect on the supposition, frequently stated, that alcohol makes easier 



, Kraepelin's Psychol. Arbeit., 1904, 4, p. 1. 

 2 Filrer, Bericht iiber den V. Internationallen Congress zur Bekiimpfung des Missbrauchs 

 geistigen Getranke, 1896, p. 367. 



