made more recently upon normal subjects, ninety reactions occupied
more than ten seconds, and fifty-four of the stimulus words elicited a
ten-second response from at least one subject.[1]

[Footnote 1: These tests were made by Dr. F. Lyman Wells, of the
McLean Hospital, Waverley, Mass., and he has kindly furnished these
data.]

It is noteworthy that these extremely long intervals occur in
connection with reactions of widely differing values. That they are by
no means limited to individual reactions is shown in Table III. by a
group of selected reactions, all given by normal subjects.


TABLE III.

Word combination Reaction time Value of
in seconds. reaction.
comfort--happiness 20 5.0%
short--long 11 27.9%
smooth--plane 16 2.3%
woman--lady 40 4.1%
hard--iron 12 2.4%
justice--judge 20 9.1%
memory--thought 20 8.1%
joy--pleasure 18 12.1%


It is apparent, even from a superficial examination of the material,
that the factors which cause variations of reaction time, both in the