246 PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL. 



higher centers it would have been used as an anaesthetic centuries ago.'' 

 It can not be an experimental accident that all the cerebral reaction 

 processes, eye-reaction, word-reaction, memory, and the free-associ- 

 ation experiments are in a class by themselves with respect to the small 

 percentile change effected by moderate doses of alcohol. In direct 

 contradiction to the Kraepelin contention that motor discharge is 

 facilitated by alcohol, are the regular and self-consistent data that the 

 simplest possible movements are much more seriously depressed by 

 alcohol than the more distinctly intellectual processes. Kraepelin's 

 sensory-motor schema of the effect of alcohol arose from a questionable 

 interpretation of the complex reaction forms. It proves utterly inade- 

 quate for the facts. We believe that the incidence of alcohol on the 

 nervous system is a much more complex problem than that simple 

 schema would indicate. 



In view of the self-consistent differences of the effect on the different 

 levels, we must ask whether alcohol has a specific action at these dif- 

 ferent levels, or whether the differences in its action are due to a 

 differential organization of the processes. It is to be noted that the 

 greatest and most persistent change consequent to alcohol is in the 

 processes which are most completely withdrawn from voluntary rein- 

 forcement and voluntary control. The higher centers alone show 

 capacity for autogenic reinforcement. In spite of sleepiness, pain, or 

 sensory distraction, and even narcosis, one can reestablish the normal 

 controls on occasion, and make a fair showing, especially when the 

 results would be serious if one let oneself go. Indeed, there is a wide- 

 spread popular belief that persons in acute alcoholic intoxication may 

 be sobered by some unusual circumstance if the shock is intense enough. 

 It seems to be common experience for the excessive user on occasion to 

 struggle to remain master of himself. He finally succumbs to alcoholic 

 narcosis only when the autogenic reinforcements fail. 



There is direct evidence in the experience of our subjects that cerebral 

 autogenic reinforcement did in fact occur to modify the effect of alcohol. 

 One of the subjects remarked with surprise how "sleepy" he could be 

 and yet "pull himself together" at the signal for the word-reaction. 

 A similar phenomenon was noted in the discussion of the free association 

 experiments, in which a subject went to sleep for a few seconds and failed 

 to hear one stimulus word, and 10" later, after being awakened, 

 responded normally both as to the latent time and the character of the 

 associate word. The capacity for pulling oneself together with alter- 

 nating periods of relaxation is a familiar expression of the same rhythmic 

 reinforcement that conditions attention waves and " spurts" of various 

 kinds. But in spite of the autogenic reinforcement, with one exception 

 the performance after alcohol was not superior to normal. Reinforce- 

 ment in these cases seems to consist chiefly of an arousal to more or less 



