Mental work and fatigue and individual differences and their causes / by Edward L. Thorndike.

  • Thorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee), 1874-1949.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Mental work and fatigue and individual differences and their causes / by Edward L. Thorndike. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

    53/434 (page 35)
    Specht [’04] finds pronounced fatigue in the course of even the first ten minutes of single addition (written). A pause of five minutes between the first and last five minutes results, according to him, in a marked improvement of the record. The fatigue must in such cases be due, it would seem, to the writing at top speed rather than to the purely mental factors. Specht’s results are so contrary to general experi- ence in mental work, and even to general experience of the curve of this particular form of work, that they demand verification by other students. Whipple [To, pp. 262 and 265] reports that in approxi- mately two hours’ continuous work in marking the letter c or o on pages of mixed letters, the achievements in successive half-hours were as 93.6, 88.2, 86.3, and 92.1. The author [Ti] secured records of continuous work, or work broken only by a brief rest for luncheon, of from four to twelve hours from fourteen adult students. They also worked for an hour or so on a later day after rest. The work was the mental multiplication of a three-place by a three-place number. The amount of fatigue may be inferred from the difference between the time required to do the same amount of work with the same accuracy at the end of the work- period and at the beginning of the test after long rest. The facts, including two individuals whose work-periods were less than four hours, are given in Table 5. Table 5 (A) gives the gross scores—that is, time taken and errors made— at the end of work and at the beginning of the trial on a later day after rest. Table 5 (B) gives the scores, each reduced to a single measure of efficiency by adding to the time taken for each example 12 per cent for each wrong figure in the answer and for each answer that was wrong.* * Thus, if an example was done in 200 seconds with 1 error, the efficiency score would be 200 -f- (.12 X 200) -j- (.12 X 200). If the gross score was 200 seconds with 3 errors, the efficiency score would be 200 + ( 36 X 200) + (.12 X 200).