a few examples by way of illustrations : "On one leg stand the storks, they have wives, they have children, they are those who bring the children, the children, which they bring into the house, this house, an idea, which people have about storks, about the activity of storks, the storks are large birds—with a long beak and live on frogs, frogs, freegs, frogs, the frogs are froogs, in the morning (Früh), in the morning they are with—breakfast (Frühstück), coffee, and with coffee they also drink cognac, and cognac they also drink wine, and with wine they drink everything possible, the frogs are large animals, and which the frogs devour, the storks devour the birds, the birds devour the animals, the animals are big, the animals are small, the animals are human beings, the animals are no human beings …", etc.
"These sheep are … were merino sheep, from which the fat was cut out by the pound, with Shylock was the fat cut out, the pound cut out," … etc.
"K … was a K … with a long nose, with a ramnose, with a rampnose, with a nose to ram, a ram gift, a man, who has rammed, who is rammed," etc.
From these examples of Stransky's experiments it can be readily seen what laws of association the stream of thought follows. It is mainly those of similarity, coexistence, motor speech connections and combinations of sound. Besides this one is struck by the numerous perseverances and repetitions (Sommer : stereotypies). If we compare to this the sample of dementia præcox associations which we have just quoted from Miss Pelletier we find a striking similarity.[1] Here, just as there, one finds the same laws of similarity, contiguity, and assonance. Only stereotypies and perseverations are lacking in Pelletier's analysis,[2] although they can be plainly seen in the communicated material. Stransky also adds to these conspicuous similarities numerous nice examples taken from dementia præcox.
It is especially important that in Stransky's normal tests there
- ↑ We must, however, mention that the speeches of Stransky show the unmistakable character of precipitation which is generally lacking in dementia præcox. What gives the impression of precipitation is hard to say.
- ↑ As mentioned above, Sommer has already shown the sound associations and stereotypies in simple word reactions.
