Study of Association in Insanity

Study of Association in Insanity

Project Gutenberg's A Study of Association in Insanity, by Grace Helen
Kent Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check
the copyright laws for your country before downloading or
redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: A Study of Association in Insanity
Author: Grace Helen Kent
Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9172] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on September 10,
2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A STUDY
OF ASSOCIATION IN INSANITY ***

Produced by Lee Dawei, Dave Maddock and Online Distributed
Proofreaders

A STUDY OF ASSOCIATION IN INSANITY
BY
GRACE HELEN KENT, A.M.
AND
A.J. ROSANOFF, M.D.
KINGS PARK STATE HOSPITAL, N.Y.

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