200 



PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL. 



These changes appear more obviously in the curves of figure 31, 

 which were plotted from table 35. 



In addition to the phenomena already mentioned, figure 31 brings 

 out several correlations between the course of the experimental process 

 and the pulse. The pulse-changes in the successive periods of the first 

 normal day seem to indicate a gradual process of adaptation to the 

 experiment. In the first period of the first normal day there is a marked 

 pre-stimulation decrease in the length of the pulse-cycles. This pre- 

 stimulation effect clearly diminishes during the session, though the last 



TABLE 35. Summary of the association pulse data of Subject VII. 

 [Length of pulse-cycles given in hundredth.? of a second.] 



'Kent-Rosanoff series; see p. 120. 



2 Series 6 and 11 are normals of the day and were taken before the alcohol dose was givi-n. 



three periods are too irregular for generalization. Similarly, in the 

 succeeding days, the pulse of the first period (the normal of the day) 

 shows increasing adaptation as the subject gets more and more familiar 

 with the experiment. That is, the normal of the day pulse has slightly 

 less pre-stirnulation drop on the second day than on the first. On the 

 third day it shows no pre-stimulation drop, while on the fourth day 

 the greatest relaxation occurs just before the stimulus is given. That 

 this is not an accident is obvious in the configuration of the curves for 



