Finger Movement. 



91 



changes to approximately 3.3 per cent in periods 4 and 5. Apparently 

 there was a facilitation in period 6, amounting to 7.1 per cent. 1 



Table 16. — Effect of alcohol upon rapidity of finger movements during a performance 



of 8 seconds. 



Since the finger oscillations of a record were not measured indi- 

 vidually, no mean variation was obtainable within the period. The 

 M. V. placed in table 15 refers to the variations between the two records 

 of the same day and period and between the records of the different 

 days. Thus, for all the normal days taken together, there were six 8- 

 second records which came in period 1 ; the average of these is 37.28 and 

 their M. V. is 0.8. The mean variations are smaller on normal than 

 on alcohol days. On the former they average 0.9, which is 2.4 per cent 

 of the average (37.9) of all the 8-second records following the control 

 dose. For alcohol the mean variations average 1.7 or 4.5 per cent of 

 the average 8-second score (37.4) following the 30 c.c. alcohol dose. 

 The smallness of the mean variations between records of homologous 

 periods is noteworthy, indicating a very even performance from day to 

 day. The probable correctness figures for the differences have been 

 computed from the above-described mean variations and necessarily 

 are quite small, since the maximum number of cases could not be more 

 than six. 



Comparison of these data with those previously obtained with the 

 same subject and on other normal subjects by Dodge and Benedict 

 (see their report, p. 182, table 30, for 6 seconds) reveals that the aver- 

 age number of complete finger oscillations in 6 seconds previously 

 scored (27.8) is about the same as in these later results, to wit, 28.8 and 

 28.4. According to the data obtained by Dodge and Benedict, this 

 subject was very slow, as he performed in 6 seconds on the average 

 about 8 complete oscillations less than the average performance for 

 their normal group. As a result of alcohol (dose A), he shows a de- 

 pression for 6 seconds amounting to 15.2 per cent. (See Dodge and 



1 From the course of the curves for alcohol days it would be interpreted offhand that the alcohol 

 depression was decidedly most prominent in period 2. It should be remembered, however, that 

 the effect of alcohol is a statement of the contrast between what occurred on alcohol days and what 

 occurred on non-alcohol days, rather than simply what occurred on successive periods of alcohol 

 days. For example, in the data under discussion, while it is apparent that the depression of 

 alcohol was prominent in period 2, yet it is as evident that the difference in the level between the 

 average for alcohol, period 3, and that for normal days, period 3, is as great as the difference for 

 period 2, and hence the effect of alcohol in the final statement appears as large. 



