Evening star., 1932-02-19
HELD
GO-STOP CONFLICT
Scientist Likens Practice to
"Stepping on Gas" and
Brakes at Same Time.
BY the Associated Press.

BALTIMORE. February 19.-People
who stutter were pictured by scientist
today as being like motorist trying to
step on the gass' and applying the
brakes at the same time.
A battle for control between starting"
md stopping" mechanisms in the
brain is the cause of suffering, the
American Orthopsychiatric Association
was told by Frederick w. Brown, men,
Der of the National Committee for
Mental Hygiene.
One part of the sufferers brain. the
motor corteX which controls speech. is
urging Go ahead and say it," while
another part, the thalamus, which
responds to emotional stresses, is
clamoring Don't say it," The reason
that sufferers keep beginning their
sentences over again is that the motor
cortex keeps gaining the upper hand,
but is continually stopped again by the
thalamus, like an auto driver alternately
he said. When the two forces become
equal the stutterer is completely
silenced
Responses Out of Control
Suffering occurs only when the
speakers emotional responses get out
of control. Brown declared
So long as there is rapport (agree-
menD between the feelings and desires
of the speaker and the words he is per-
mitted by the social situation to utter,
his speech, within the limits of normal
intensity OF emotional expression, is we'll
controlled But let the intensity of the
emotion be increased-let the stimulus
to speech, for example, call forth intense
expressions of fear. anger pain or love
and even under the most favorable
circumstances the interference with the
cortical control of the local organs is
markedly noticeable There are, as a
rule. disturbances of breathing. of tone
quality. of pitch, of articulation and
even of the content of thought
Most children have similar stereo-
typed ideas about who is the greatest
living man." and who is the greatest
man who ever lived" Dr. H. Meltzer of
the Psychiatric Child Guidance Clinic,
st. Louis, reported. These ideas. how
ever do rot personify the individual
child's real ideals, he said. but only
herd ideals" common to almost every
one.
81 Per Cent Alike.
He asked $50 children who is the
greatest living man?" Five names,
Hoover, Lindbergh. Edison Coolidge and
Ford made up 8l29 per cent of the
replies. The children then were asked,
Who is the greatest man who ever
lived?" The leading answers we're:
Washington. Lincoln. Jesus. Columbus
and God These five names constituted
BIT per cent of the answers.
The concentration of the five names
in each group. Meltzer said. is inter-
preted "as signifying that what is per-
sonif1ed is herd ideals or stereotypes
rather than ideals which really inte-
CRATE with the child personalities
studied
Possibility that prison inmates are
imprisoned in mind" as we'll as in
body and that this may be one reason
for delinquency was suggested by re-
port of the famous ''ink-blot test
given to 35 convicts at the Massachu-
setts State Prison by Samuel j. Beck
of the Boston Psychopathlc Hospital.
Have Less Imagination.
In the "ink-blot test" the subjects
are asked to tell what ideas are aroused
in their minds by looking at several
different shapes and sizes of blots. The
ideas given to the prisoners by the blots
were compared with ideas aroused by
the same blots among a group OF in
telligent people outside.
Beck found the prisoners seemed to
have less imagination, less originality
fewer ideas and less confidence in these
ideas, more restraint, more restricted
inner and outward mental life than
the other group. He suggested this may
help explain why they became GRIM
| inals hut in what Way is so far unde-
| termined.