Retardation

“ When it is of the same sense, the retardation it causes may be partly due to the distraction of the attention by it, but partly also to the fact that the stimulus to be reacted on stands out less strongly than if alone, and practically becomes a less intense sensation. ”

“ Since the designation of the limits must be very rough until we have much further information from tests upon unselected groups, we have adopted the common method of description in terms of years of retardation, since it seems to afford for the 1908 scale the simplest expression of the borderline until the tests have been much improved. It happens that the empirical results for 5 years of age and over lend themselves to designating the lowest percentages in terms of years of retardation with only a single shift at 9 years of age. ”

“ The neglect of training, for instance, in periods of development may have resulted in the retardation which yields the symptoms of a feeble-minded brain, or the wrong training may have created vicious habits, firmly established in the mind-brain system and gravely disturbing the equilibrium. ”

“ Instead of being accelerated, the current may be depressed and retarded even to such a degree as to plunge the mind into a deep sleep. Such retardation we find under the influence of bromides, or of anaesthetics, such as ether, chloroform, of hypnotics, such as sulfonal, chloral and others. ”

“ In any event no true benefit has been derived, and, since the harm was done during the growing state, retardation of development occurs, and, in future years, disease symptoms may be traced directly to the points affected in infancy. With functional troubles continually recurring, these deficiencies in organism finally cause almost absolute cessation of the processes of elimination. ”

“ It is also legitimate to use years of retardation as a short way of expressing rough borderlines when they happen thus to afford an easy method of empirically describing equivalent borderlines for a particular scale. ”

“ It is now generally conceded [275] by the medical profession that these conditions exercise such a profound influence on the physical and nervous system that the free and normal development of intellect as well as of character is retarded. Frequently the boy who is backward in school and who often displays tendencies toward truancy, evasion, and falsehood because of his mental retardation has reached this state on account of his physical condition. ”

“ It has been shown, however, that the retardation of the other races is not necessarily significant, because the amount of retardation is small as compared to the time consumed in reaching the present stages. ”

“ Over half of the pupils fail to progress through the grades at the expected speed. What are the causes of retardation? To what extent is it an expression of congenital mental deficiency? How many mentally deficient children are in our schools? ”

“ but the distance is commonly very great between actual performances and speculative possibility. It is natural to suppose, that as much as has been done to-day, may be done to-morrow; but on the morrow some difficulty emerges, or some external impediment obstructs. Indolence, interruption, business, and pleasure, all take their turns of retardation; and every long work is lengthened by a thousand causes that can, and ten thousand that cannot be recounted. Perhaps no extensive and multifarious performance was ever effected within the term originally fixed in the undertaker’s mind. ”

“ A separate analysis of the components of the rhythmical group shows, for the dactylic form, an important increase in duration in only one of the three intervals, namely, that following the element which receives accentual stress. The proportional values for these intervals follow.
TABLE XL.
Since the progressive variation does not penetrate the whole measure, but affects only a single constituent having a strongly marked functional character, the process of change becomes unlike that of true retardation. ”

“ When two bodies run through the same course with variable rapidity, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, their relative position will be more likely to show accidental differences, the longer the course which they run. Thus two infants a few months old will be much alike in their physiological and psychical development; two youths of equal age will differ much more; and two old men of equal age may, the one still be in full possession of his powers, the other on the decline, due mainly to the accidental acceleration or retardation of 9their development. ”

“ The delay thus gained might not be more than a second in duration—but that second may be critical; for in the constant rising and falling of considerations in the mind, where two associated systems of them are nearly in equilibrium it is often a matter of but a second more or less of attention at the outset, whether one system shall gain force to occupy the field and develop itself, and exclude the other, or be excluded itself by the other. ”

“ Chapter Eighteen.
Spa, June 10.
Here we are, and for a time at rest. Rest! no, the wheels of the carriage may rest, even the body for a time may rest, but the mind will not. We carry our restlessness with us wherever we go. Like a steam-engine, the mind works, and works, and works, sometimes, indeed, with less rapidity of motion; but still it goes on, goes on in its ever-continued labour; waking or sleeping, no repose; until the body, which is the mechanical part of the engine, is worn out by constant friction, or the steam of the mind is exhausted. ”

“ I think, however, that it will be found that what is subject to fatigue is merely the physical organism through which everything in us which manifests on this plane must pass. What we call mental fatigue is a parallel case. There is no such thing as fatigue in the mind; what we call by that name is only fatigue of the physical brain through which that mind has to express itself. ”

“ More often it is that the limit of human endurance has been passed. Fatigue has ceased to be normal and has become abnormal—his mind is dulled—his nerve deadened—his muscles do not respond. The wonder is that in the shrieking, devilish uproar of the factory, a tired man can keep up his habit of caution as steadily as most of them do. ”

“ The latter state, in which the Automatic activity and the directing power of the Will are alike reduced, is clearly dependent, like the feeling of muscular fatigue, on the deterioration of the Organ, or of the Blood, or of both combined, which results from the prolonged exercise of it: and it is especially in our inability to recollect something which we wish to call to mind, that this failure of power shows itself. ”

“ Without any obvious reason for it, our visceral activities can hardly be controlled at all; compound reflexes (such as yawning, sneezing, laughing, weeping) are very imperfectly controlled; our habitual actions, once started, go on of themselves, and often begin without (or contrary to) our wishes, especially gestures and expressions; in fatigue control flags, in disease is often lost; [268] we do not always give the same weight to the same motives, nor fulfil our intentions whether good or bad. ”

“ In all these cases, stimulants upon the mind seem to act rather by taking off the attention from the bodily fatigue, than by really and truly counteracting it. If the energy of my mind had really counteracted the fatigue of my body, why should I feel tired the next morning? if the stimulus of the hounds had as completely overcome the fatigue of the journey in reality, as it did in appearance, why should the horse be tired sooner than if he had not gone the forty miles? ”

“ The threshold of the associated system rises, but on the other hand, the chances for activity increase, while the liberation or discharge of energy with the consequent evil effects of extreme fatigue, exhaustion and ill nutrition is checked and guarded against by the inhibitions and the rise of threshold. ”

“ On the other hand this protective blood-vessel contraction creates again as in the other cases a characteristic organic sensation, the sensation of rest which arises when the threshold of perception and activity is raised. The world begins to appear dim and far away, no impulse for action excites us. This organic feeling of rest associates itself with the fatigue feeling. The fatigue sensation, the subcortical sleep center, the contraction of the vessels in the cortex, and finally the rest sensation form together the complete circle. ”

“ If the neuroglia cells, whose end plates are attached to blood-vessel walls, become over-contracted or lose their power of relaxation or of contraction, many of the curious phenomena of over-tiredness in neurotic conditions, and the lack of the power of concentration, and sufficient attention to things, can be readily understood. In a word, the theory enables us to translate many expressions that are vague and indefinite, from terms of mind into terms of the physical basis of mind—the anatomy and physiology of the brain. ”

“ If a man of this class, year after year, serves twenty-three hours, then rests seven hours, then serves twenty-three hours again, etc., he is inevitably overtaken by fatigue and nervous relaxation in which signals, warnings, calls, etc., are simply misunderstood. Statistics tend to show that the largest number of accidents occur at the end of a period of service, i.e., at the time of greatest fatigue. ”

“ There seems to exist a kind of periodical oscillation of mental receptivity or attention in connection with which the increasing fatigue expresses itself by fluctuations around a median position which is gradually displaced. ”

“ The cycle is such that its own completion provides the conditions for its own mere repetition. It eliminates the fatigue attendant upon the repetition of any one of its parts. Only some strength of physical memory can aggregate fatigue arising from the cycle as a whole. Provided that each cycle in itself is self-repairing, the fatigue from repetition requires a high level of coordination of stretches of past experience.
At the level of human experience we do find fatigue arising from the mere repetition of cycles. ”

“ Long habit also produces in the muscles exercised a capacity for enduring fatigue to a much greater degree than they could support under other circumstances. A similar result seems to take place in any change of mental exertion; the attention bestowed on the new subject not being so perfect at first as it becomes after some exercise. The employment of different tools in the successive processes, is another cause of the loss of time in changing from one operation to another. If these tools are simple, and the change is not frequent, the loss of time is not considerable ”

“ General Debility.—Nervous exhaustion and the loss of the vivifying influence of the seminal fluid produce extreme mental and physical debility, which increases as the habit is practiced, and is continued by involuntary emissions after the habit ceases. If the patient's habits are sedentary, and if he had a delicate constitution at the start, his progress toward the grave will be fearfully rapid, especially if the habit were acquired young, as it most frequently is by such boys, they being generally precocious. ”

“ There is no standard by which time can be measured, but the succession of our thoughts, and the changes that take place in the external world: from the latter I was totally excluded; the former made the lapse of some hours appear like the tediousness of weeks and months. At length a new sensation recalled my rambling meditations, and gave substance to my fears: I now felt the cravings of hunger, and perceived that, unless my deliverance were speedily effected, I must suffer a tedious and lingering death. ”

“ Suppose two men of equal weight to ascend the same stair, one of whom takes only a minute to reach the top, and the other takes four minutes, it will cost the first little more than a fourth part of the fatigue which it costs the second, because the exhaustion is in proportion to the time during which the muscles are acting. ”

“ The student of industrial efficiency is, for instance, constantly led to the question of fatigue. He may consider this fatigue as a function of brain and muscle activity and discuss it with reference to the psychophysical effort, but he is equally interested in the question of how far the apparatus or the machine or the accessory conditions of the work might be changed in order to avoid fatigue. The accidents of the electric street railways were regarded as partly related to fatigue. ”

“ Through the influence of exhaustion, fatigue, or the influence of toxic, autotoxic, emotional, and other stimulations, the thresholds of certain moments have been raised so that ordinary or even maximal stimuli can no longer callout any response. ”

“ The influence of practice and the persistence of the effects of practice, the influence of fatigue and the capacity for recovery from fatigue, the depth of sleep and the capacity for concentration and deviation of attention are among the conditions which have been investigated, and a scheme is given by which many of these points may be tested in a large number of individuals. ”

“ The paths of natural (or it may be unnatural) impulse are so pervious in them that the slightest rise in the level of innervation produces an overflow. It is the condition recognized in pathology as 'irritable weakness.' The phase known as nascency or latency is so short in the excitement of the neural tissues that there is no opportunity for strain or tension to accumulate within them; and the consequence is that with all the agitation and activity, the amount of real feeling engaged may be very small. The hysterical temperament is the playground par excellence of this unstable equilibrium. ”