Mental fatigue : a comprehensive exposition of the nature of mental fatigue, of the methods of its measurement and of their results, with special reference to the problems of instruction / by Dr. Max Offner tr. from the German by Guy Montrose Whipple.
- Offner, Max, 1864-1932.
- Date:
- 1911
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Mental fatigue : a comprehensive exposition of the nature of mental fatigue, of the methods of its measurement and of their results, with special reference to the problems of instruction / by Dr. Max Offner tr. from the German by Guy Montrose Whipple. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.
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![in some degree the correspondence that is assumed may obtain. Measurement of fatigue by the respiration and by the pulse. Still less feasible are other very fluctuat- ing physiological symptoms that are affected by many influences difficult of control, for example, to name the most prominent, the retardation and dimi- nution of the pulse and the shallowing of respiration that frequently ensue upon mental work. Binet and Henri (33 if.) have reported in some detail upon these methods of measuring fatigue. Under some circumstances, one can, to be sure, infer the presence of mental fatigue from the presence of these phe- nomena, but yet one does not always find them when fatigue is present, and even if they are to be thought of as symptoms of fatigue, still it is impossible to argue from their magnitude to the magnitude of the fatigue, since it is impossible to demonstrate any proportionality between the two. Beating time. Closely related to the ergographic method is the method of beating time. This method, which has been recommended by W. Stern {Diff. Psych., 117 f., 122 fiP.), has been much used by M. Lobsien and W. A. Lay (especially 406 ff.) and has found particular favor in America (Grilbert, Wells) in tests of groups under the name, ^'the tapping test.'^* This method, like the preceding, tests efficiency by resort to a physical ]3rocess, which, like every bodily activity, is naturally influenced by mental factors. ♦The tapping test of Gilbert and Wells, however, is not identical with the test of beating time here described, since in tapping the subject is instructed to tap continuously at his mawwial rate. See reference, footnote, p. 24.—Translator.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21211632_0040.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
