Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/236

226 In this case the reaction to the stimulus word is in some way impeded, that is, the adaptation to the stimulus word is disturbed. The stimulus words are therefore merely a part of reality acting upon us; indeed, a person who shows such disturbances to the stimulus words, is in a certain sense really but imperfectly adapted to reality. Disease is an imperfect adaptation; hence in this case we are dealing with something morbid



in the psyche,—with something which is either temporary or persistently pathological, that is, we are dealing with a psychoneurosis, with a functional disturbance of the mind. This rule, however, as we shall see later, is not without its exceptions.

Let us in the first place continue the discussion concerning the prolonged reaction time. It often happens that the test person actually does not know what to answer to the stimulus