A STUDY OF ASSOCIATION IN INSANITY

TABLE OF CONTENTS.


PART I. ASSOCIATION IN NORMAL SUBJECTS.

§1. Method of Investigation

§2. The Normal Standard

§3. The Frequency Tables

§4. Normal Associational Tendencies

§5. Practical Considerations

§6. An Empirical Principle of Normal Association


PART II. ASSOCIATION IN INSANE SUBJECTS.

§1. General Survey of Pathological Material


§2. Classification of Reactions

§3. Non-Specific Reactions; Doubtful Reactions

§4. Individual Reactions; Explanation of Groups and Methods of
Application

Normal Reactions
Pathological Reactions
Derivatives of Stimulus Words
Partial Dissociation
Non-Specific Reactions
Sound Reactions
Word Complements
Particles of Speech
Complete Dissociation
Perseveration
Neologisms
Unclassified Reactions
Normal Reactions
Circumstantial Reactions
Distraction
Incoherent Reactions

§5. Order of Preference

§6. Errors Involved in the Use of Arbitrary Objective Standards

§7. Analysis of Pathological Material
Dementia Præcox
Paranoic Conditions
Epilepsy
General Paresis
Manic-Depressive Insanity
Involutional Melancholia; Alcoholic Dementia; Senile Dementia

§8. Pathological Reactions from Normal Subjects

§9. Number of Different Words given as Reactions

§10. Co-operation of the Subject

§11. Summary

Acknowledgments

INDEX TO FREQUENCY TABLES AND APPENDIX

THE FREQUENCY TABLES

APPENDIX TO THE FREQUENCY TABLES




PART I.

ASSOCIATION IN NORMAL SUBJECTS.


Among the most striking and commonly observed manifestations of
insanity are certain disorders of the flow of utterance which appear
to be dependent upon a derangement of the psychical processes commonly
termed association of ideas. These disorders have to some extent been
made the subject of psychological experimentation, and the object of
this investigation is to continue and extend the study of these
phenomena by an application of the experimental method known as the
association test.



§ 1. METHOD OF INVESTIGATION.


In this investigation we have followed a modified form of the method
developed by Sommer,[1] the essential feature of which is the
statistical treatment of results obtained by uniform technique from a
large number of cases.

[Footnote 1: Diagnostik der Geisteskrankheiten, p. 112.]

The stimulus consists of a series of one hundred spoken words, to each
of which the subject is directed to react by the first word which it
makes him think of. In the selection of the stimulus words, sixty-six
of which were taken from the list suggested by Sommer, we have taken
care to avoid such words as are especially liable to call up personal
experiences, and have so arranged the words as to separate any two
which bear an obviously close relation to one another. After much
preliminary experimentation we adopted the following list of words:

01 Table
02 Dark
03 Music
04 Sickness
05 Man
06 Deep
07 Soft
08 Eating
09 Mountain
10 House
11 Black
12 Mutton
13 Comfort
14 Hand
15 Short
16 Fruit
17 Butterfly
18 Smooth
19 Command
20 Chair
21 Sweet
22 Whistle
23 Woman
24 Cold
25 Slow
26 Wish
27 River
28 White
29 Beautiful
30 Window
31 Rough
32 Citizen
33 Foot
34 Spider
35 Needle
36 Red
37 Sleep
38 Anger
39 Carpet
40 Girl
41 High
42 Working
43 Sour
44 Earth
45 Trouble
46 Soldier
47 Cabbage
48 Hard
49 Eagle
50 Stomach

No attempt is made to secure uniformity of external conditions for the
test; the aim has been rather to make it so simple as to render
strictly experimental conditions unnecessary. The test may be made in
any room that is reasonably free from distracting influences; the
subject is seated with his back toward the experimenter, so that he
cannot see the record; he is requested to respond to each stimulus
word by one word, the first word that occurs to him other than the
stimulus word itself, and on no account more than one word. If an
untrained subject reacts by a sentence or phrase, a compound word, or
a different grammatical form of the stimulus word, the reaction is
left unrecorded, and the stimulus word is repeated at the close of the
test.