ABSTRACTS

"Recent work of Pavloff and his Pupils." By W. HORSLEY GANTT, M.D. (Leningrad). Arch. of Neur. and Psychiatry, vol. xvi, pt 4, pp. 514–528, April, 1927.

Only a few points will be dealt with out of many: (a) Orders' of Conditioned Reflexes. In a dog a positive conditioned reflex is formed on a flash of light, food being used as the unconditioned stimulus. Several times a day the light is turned on, and at the same time a whistle is blown, and this combination is not supported by feeding. Soon the whistle acquires the character of a positive conditioned stimulus because of its association with the positive light, i.e. the whistle stimulus alone now produces a flow of saliva although it has never been followed by feeding. In this case the whistle is a reflex of the second order. By the use of a defence reflex, the work has been carried a step further. An electric current (unconditioned stimulus) is passed through the foot of the dog; it howls and draws up its foot (unconditioned reflex). The current is then preceded by a skin irritator (conditioned stimulus) and, after some repetitions, the conditioned stimulus alone produces the howling and movement of the foot (conditioned reflex). Now the skin irritation is combined several times daily with the sound of bubbling air through water, but without the electric current. Soon the bubbling sound alone acquires the character of a positive conditioned stimulus, i.e. it evokes the howling and the movement of the dog's foot, though it has never been combined itself with the electric current. This is a reflex of the second order. Now the bubbling is repeated simultaneously with a whistle for several days. Soon the whistle acquires the property of the conditioned stimulus; it causes the dog to howl and draw up its foot. It is a conditioned reflex of the third order. Higher orders have not been formed. Inhibitory conditioned reflexes of higher orders have been found in similar manner, i.e. by associating an indifferent stimulus with a negative conditioned stimulus. The indifferent stimulus takes on the quality of the negative conditioned stimulus and this leads to the deduction that inhibition and stimulation are different sides of the same process. Seriatsky formed a series of positively conditioned reflexes with tones of a pipe organ, alternating with a series of negatively conditioned reflexes also from a pipe organ, till the whole keyboard was used up. It was further found that tones just above and below a positive' were also positive, and so with the 'negative' stimuli; the 'territory' extended to six semi-tones. An interesting effect was discovered: repeated stimulation of a positive stimulus without negative ones led to irritability and excitement; on the other hand, repeated stimulation of negative without positive ones led to apathy and sleep. Symptoms resembling neurasthenia were produced in the dogs by too frequently repeated conditioned stimuli, i.e. without opportunity for rest or else by presenting a problem of too difficult differentiation,' e.g. 100 beats of the metronome followed by food and 110 not followed by food created a 'positive' for 100 and a 'negative' for 110. If set at 104, it will require much inhibition from the dog to prevent a flow of saliva; if the 104 quickly follows the 100 beat rhythm there will be a 'collision' of positive and negative processes resulting in an abnormal state resembling neurasthenia; the dogs whine, refuse to eat, show disinclination for their daily work, etc., but they recover with rest or rectal injections of

potassium bromide given just before the experiment. Whether the symptoms tend to depression or excitement depends on the type of dog; normally the two processes are in equilibrium. Removal of the frontal half of the cortex cerebri is more injurious than the posterior half, but less than is the case if the whole cortex is removed. When the cortex is removed it is impossible to form a defensive conditioned reflex.

Conditioned reflexes have been formed in fish, mice, puppies and children. Children are quicker than dogs, the reflexes are retained longer and are stronger without intervening practice and are less easily destroyed.

The time required in an experiment is enormous, the experimenter works with an animal an hour a day, five or six days a week, for months on end. The creatures appear to enjoy the work for the most part. J. R. "The Syndrome of Mental Automatism and its Rôle in the Formation of the Chronic Systematized Psychoses: a Review." By PERCIVAL BAILEY, M.D., Ph.D. Journ. of Nerv. and Ment. Dis., vol. LXV, pt 4, pp. 345-359, April, 1927.

This review collects the scattered and but little known writings of G. C. de Clérambault who employs the term syndrome somewhat diversely, e.g. syndrome of irritation, syndrome of passivity, syndrome of interference, etc., which the author thinks could all be called mental automatisms. The syndrome of mental automatisms can be subdivided into three sorts, sensory, motor and ideoverbal, which comprise respectively ordinary visual, auditory, etc., hallucinations, hallucinations of kinaesthetic sensibility (e.g. the delusion that people make the patient do acts) and psychic hallucinations (uncontrollable thoughts, distortion of thoughts, enunciation of acts, on the positive side, and on the negative inhibition of thought, etc.). Thus Percival Bailey sees in the syndrome of automatism a method of grading all hallucinations and delusions on a common basis of greater or less intoxication and trauma to the brain cells, which however vary in this sensitiveness to these noxae. By the double aetiology of elective intoxication in the neural hierarchy and variation in strength of the injury he explains the phenomena of the psychoses. This throws some light on the effects of encephalitis lethargica intoxication which at an early age produces imbecility or even idiocy, later sleep disturbance, later still character perversion, at about 20 syndromes like dementia praecox and late in life only asthenia. These concepts do not find a place in his classification which runs:

A. CONSTITUTIONAL PSYCHOSES: (a) Passional psychoses: (i) erotomania, (ii) querulousness, (iii) jealousy, (iv) fanatical idealism; (b) Interpretative psychoses (e.g. misinterpretations regarding presentation); (c) Imaginative psychoses (e.g. confabulation).

B. DEGENERATIVE PSYCHOSES, i.e. chronic hallucinosis without delirium, e.g. a person having hypochrondriacal sensations may if imaginative believe them to have divine significance, or if of interpretative disposition believe he is possessed of a devil, and so on. The author regards this tautology as an explanation of hallucinatory [and delusional] phenomena; further to explain the details, new concepts such as mythomanic, perverse, jealous, erotic, or imaginative characters or predispositions are brought forward so that the syndrome of mental automatism with which the paper begins appears to vanish into the distance before the author reaches the clinical classification which is its climax. J. R.

"The Psychology of Alfred Adler." By WAYLAND F. VAUGHAN, Ph.D. Journ. of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. XXI, pt 4, pp. 358-371, Jan.-March, 1927.

A presentation and mild criticism of the work of the founder of Individual Psychology. It dwells chiefly on an aspect of this theory which was at one time prominent but has faded into the 'distance' in recent years, viz. the psychical compensation for organ inferiority. Just at a time when the Freudian school took up the castration complex, the Adlerian appears to have neglected the organ inferiority which was the first important contribution to psychopathology that Adler made. The author goes so far as to say that "though divergent in the details of their theories, Adler and Freud still remain in fundamental agreement, their denials to the contrary notwithstanding." Such a statement leads one to examine this survey of Adler's work once again and on re-reading it becomes apparent that no stress is laid on Adler's non-use of the unconscious (wherein he differs from Freud and Jung), nor on Adler's neglect of regression (wherein he resembles Jung), nor does the author state Adler's position regarding the transference neurosis (on which there is much confusion in the minds of those who cannot distinguish between Freud and Jung). The absence of a reference to Resistance, which Adler attempts to explain, shows that the author has not fully grasped the depths of the Adlerian psychology nor mastered the theories of the rival schools, but this paper is useful to a beginner in Adlerian study, for it is clear.

J. R.

L'Année Psychologique. Edited by HENRI PIERON. 26th Year. Paris: Felix Alcan. Price 70 francs.

This Annual is without any rival to-day as a convenient summary of the yearly output in all branches of psychology; the editor complains, rightly enough, that its value is insufficiently recognized as an instrument of international work in this science. The present, the twenty-sixth, annual contains 567 pages of abstracts under sixteen heads, with several original papers. These latter are mainly of psychophysiological interest: two by the editor on visual problems, others by Bourdon, by Foucault and by St-Velinsky on auditory problems. Piaget gives an interesting study on primitive forms of causality in children. It was in L'Année Psychologique that Binet and Simon published their intelligence standards on children (1910), a research that is still inspiring the psychology of education; it has by this alone sufficiently established its right to recognition. This number includes a complete list of the original articles published in the 25 volumes of this year-book with an alphabetical list of the authors. M. D. EDER.

"The Method of Paired Coincidences for Social Values." By L. L. THURSTONE. Journ. of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. XXI, pt 4, pp. 384–400, Jan.-March, 1927.

This is an attempt to apply the ideas of psychophysical measurement in the field of social values. The principle is as follows: suppose 90 judges say that crime A is worse than B and the remaining 10 per cent. that B is worse than A, and further, that 55 per cent. hold that B is more serious than C, we should be satisfied in the assertion that the separation of A and B in a scale

of seriousness was greater than that of B and C. The method employed was to place before a group of persons crimes arranged in pairs, e.g. CheatingMurder, and ask each person to underline the one he thought the more serious offence. Nineteen offences were thus coupled, giving 176 pairs. The problem is to construct a scale for measurement of seriousness, the raw data being the frequency of the underscoring by the group of persons of any given offence, and the resulting proportion of the underscoring of that offence to other offences. An interesting contrast between this and that of the conventional psychophysical scaling problem now arises, for in the latter we assume knowledge of the stimulus intensities and seek the proportion of correct judgments for varying stimulus differences, whereas in this case the situation is more or less reversed in that we are seeking the stimulus values themselves. The matter is made more difficult of solution because we are seeking at the same time both stimulus intensities and the coarseness of discrimination. To make all scale values positive an arbitrary origin is located at the offence considered to be least serious, viz. Vagrancy, and in making a unit of measurement for the scale the standard of error of observation is assumed to be constant for all offences. [The author compiles tables of data and 'spaces' the crimes according to the results of his investigation. The reader may easily reconstruct one of these by marking on a line 35 unit distances, then Vagrancy falls at unit mark 0. Receiving Stolen Goods 10, Bootlegging 10-2, Smuggling 11, Libel 11-3, Larceny 13-2, Assault and Battery 14-5, Burglary 15.2, Forgery 15.5, Counterfeiting 16.2, Embezzlement 16-8, Perjury 16-9, Arson 20-2, Adultery 21, Kidnapping 22, Abortion and Seduction equally 22-9, Homicide 31-7, Rape 32-8. (The author expressly does not give these numerical values, but they will assist the reader in reconstructing one of the tables.)] It will be noted that all four sex offences are judged more serious than any of the property offences, there is no overlapping. In the case of Homicide and Rape 56 per cent. rated the former as the more serious but when the scale values are determined by independent com parison with other offences the latter scales higher. The author then carries the analysis further by estimating the internal consistency of the results on the basis of the expected proportion of judgments and those actually obtained and finds the correspondence varies between less than one to 6 or 7 with an occasional 8 or 9 per cent. discrepancy. The study shows that "quantitative judgments of a rather intangible sort, loaded usually with personal opinion, bias, and even strong feeling, and regarded generally as the direct antithesis of quantitative measurement, are nevertheless amenable to the type of quantitative analysis which is associated historically with psychophysics."

J. R.

"Vertigo and the Death Wish." By ERNEST E. HADLEY, M.D. Journ. of Nerv. and Ment. Dis. vol. LXV, pt 2, pp. 131-148, Feb. 1927.

After a survey of the differential diagnosis the author gives a case history illustrating his thesis that in the absence of ego syntonic libido gratification the patient became tense and full of unwelcome emotions, "the summation of this vague feeling of dis-ease is experienced as distractibility and confusion up to a pronounced vertigo-even to a panic state." The important place of a death wish is explained as a permanent solution for the patient himself of his difficulties, which are chiefly sexual, i.e. the patient by feeling dizzy not

only utilized the symptom as a distraction, as a relief, but it also enabled him to find comfort in a Cosmos pre-concept. [The Cosmos pre-concept (Sullivan, Ps-A. Rev. Jan. 1925, in "The Oral Complex") includes a 'felt pleasure,' a comfort, described as "a content of universal subjective participation comparable to the state of omnipotence." The interruption of this state is the beginning of Death-Evil perceptions brought about by "emphatic changes in the fluid tension, hormone content of the blood and the foetal bio-chemistry' (Sullivan), which occurs during labour when the head engages, called by him the stage of foetal 'unconsciousness.' All post-natal experience having pleasure and pain has reference to these basic Cosmos and Death-Evil pre-concepts.]

J. R.

Journal de Psychologie. 23rd Year, January to March, 1926.

This special number is devoted to psychology and aesthetics considered under the following headings: aesthetics in general, language, music, the plastic arts, architecture, primitive art, prehistoric art.

Ibid. April, 1926.

LORENZ, La théorie des associations simultanées chez Wundt et chez son précurseur Ampère. Points out that the laws of association elaborated by Wundt were anticipated by Ampère.

CHEVALIER et BOUYER, De l'image à l'hallucination. Hallucination regarded as a false judgment of reality, requires a preliminary understanding of images, treated here from several points of view the child, the artist. The mechanisms of hallucination are discussed and the conditions under which the fonction du réel (in Janet's sense) becomes lost. The study is the joint work of a psychologist and a clinician.

PASCAL et DAVESNE, Chocs émotionnels pathogènes et thérapeutiques.

Ibid. May, 1926.

PAWLOW, Derniers résultats des recherches sur le travail des hémisphères cérébraux. As a working hypothesis Pawlow concludes that integration, the formation of new links, is executed by the synapses. The nerve cells themselves are responsible for oscillations in excitability.

J. PÉRES, Observations et remarques sur la mentalité du premier âge.

Ibid. July, 1926.

SEGERS, Recherches sur la perception visuelle chez les enfants. Up to 4 or 5 years visual perception of differences of form is very slight; increases noticeably after the fifth year.

Ibid. July, 1926.

SEGERS, Recherches sur la perception visuelle chez les enfants. The investigations are carried on at varying ages, up to 12—with results that should prove of value to the educationist.

WALLON et DEREUX, Exhibitionisme et syphilis. Two cases of exhibitionism are recorded in syphilitics (not G.P.I.) and the question is asked, but not answered, if there is any direct relationship between exhibitionism and syphilis.