FREE ASSOCIATION. 125 



The present doses of alcohol have therefore produced in the associ- 

 ative responses only very few and small consistent effects that are 

 measurable by available techniques. 



SPECIAL EPISODES. 



Special episodes occurring in the course of the experiments as spon- 

 taneous remarks by the subject and the like, were noted in shorthand. 

 Two of these occurrences are worth mentioning here. On two occa- 

 sions Subject II dropped asleep between association words and had to 

 be aroused. The experimental data in this connection were: 



Feb. 3, 1914, 5 h 30 m p. m. series: Feb. 17, 1914, 5 h 25 m p. m. series: 



pattern-scissors. scissors-cut, 



cliff- (asleep; roused after 20 to 30 quiet- (asleep). 



seconds) . 

 level-rule. street-number. 



The point of these occurrences is that a subject within 10 seconds 

 after responding properly in an experiment involving some complexity 

 of mental process could so completely lose consciousness as to be able 

 to make no response at all, and after arousal could immediately take 

 up the process at apparently the same level as before. 



The experiment on March 6, 1914, with Subject VII showed a very 

 marked fluctuation in the number of speech-habit associations corre- 

 sponding with a change that the subject described in his mental condi- 

 tion. The numbers of the speech-habit associations in the successive 

 series were as follows: 



Series 4 h 10 m p. m. 4 h 35 m p. m. 5 h 05 m p. m. 5 h 30 m p. m. 6 h 00 m p. m. 6 h 20 m p. m. 



Speech-habit 

 associations. 10 8 16 22 18 8 



There is an increase in the speech-habit associations which later falls 

 off. At the end of the 5 h 05 m p.m. series the subject complained of 

 sleepiness. At the end of the 5 h 30 m p.m. series he says : " I notice that I 

 am using compound words to-day; that is, the word comes right after it. 

 I am quite tired. My decision follows the path of least resistance." At 

 the end of the 6 h 20 m p.m. series, when the speech-habit reactions have 

 fallen back to the starting-point, he says: "I am not sleepy now as I was 

 then ; feel more comfortable. The associations seem different ; for smoke 

 I might now say tobacco, while before I would be more apt to say stack." 



This condition of normal sleepiness seems, therefore, related in the 

 subject to a change in the character of the associations in the same 

 direction as the alcohol effects, but to a far greater amount. An 

 abnormally great number of speech-habit reactions was also noted in 

 this subject in the first series on February 27. Here the subject states 

 that he "does not understand the words clearly, having a cold -which 

 interferes with his hearing." Probably every worker with the experi- 

 ment has had the experience, with Wells, that indistinct hearing of the 

 stimulus word conduces to speech-habit reaction. 



