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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![test-work consists cMefly of sucli tests as taMng dic- tation, computing, counting letters, and other similar actiA^ties which involve a series of mental processes of a predominatingly intellectual character, like those that constitute the higher mental processes in general. This method had its inception in the conmaon ob- servation that hard mental work renders us disin- clined and unfit, at first for the kind of work we are doing, then for similar work, and finally for any sort of mental exertion. That is to say, we are in a state of general fatigue. Nevertheless, we have reason to suppose that this general reduction of mental effi- ciency does not affect all phases of mental activity equally, hut rather in accordance with the degree of similarity—that, in other words, the mind is the more fatigued for a given form of new activity, the more this new activity resembles the original fatigue-pro- ducing activity.* It follows that these tests of fatigue that prescribe a form of work that is as similar as possible to the fatigue-producing activity, particularly to school work, really get at mental fatigue from more sides than do such tests as esthesiometry and the like. Still, they do not, by any means, get at it from all sides, because a form of test that should be fully equivalent to the activities involved in studying and in school work generally would itself be so com- j)]icated that it would be impossible to evaluate it ex- actly, especially to determine and compute the errors, and hence impossible to compare the different tests; *The disputed question of specific versus general fatigue must be deferred for extended discussion in a subsequent section.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21211632_0057.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
