Evening star., 1940-09-07
Homesick? Then Fall in Love!
Tests Show It's Sure Cure
Overlooking Your Sympathetic Half
One Cause of That Hollow FeeInq'

the dead-eXcept that 1t has a dill.
ferent emotional starting point.
That Strange Hollow Feeling"
Students described their physical
symptoms and, he said, there can
be little doubt that many of them
were really sick. Some had "a
strange hollow feeling in the pit
of the stomach" Others complained
of a queer Tightening inside" Most
victims told of Jumps in their
throats"
All these feelings, Dr.. McCann
pointed out, might result from IAN
overlooking of the sympathetic half
of the autonomic system" In addi-
ton there was general feeling that
something terrible is about to hap
pen at home"
He compared 100 freshmen, both
boys and girls, who were homesick
with 100 who escaped this feeling
Tests showed that those who suffered
from nostalgia were more unstable
emotionally than those who escaped
There was no difference in this re-
spect, however, between introverts
and extraverts and the social and
conpanionable individuals became
Just as homesick as the solitary and
non social.
For the girls he found a keen
sense of belonging to the home and
inability of adjustment outside it.
Whenever the word home" was
mentioned. they reported strong
mental images of home surround
ings.
With boys the cause was more
often longing for a hometown sweet
heart and inability TO make the ac-
quaintance of girls in the college
town.
HomesicknesS, DR.. McCann found,
may come either gradually or sud-
denly and may last from a few mo-
ments to several weeks. 1t often
can be cured completely by a brief
visit to the home or by getting the
victim interested in college activities.
But, he found, new girl or boy
friend was the one sure cure.
A new kind of lie detector, which
operates on the reverse Of the pop
ular belief that criminals have
shifty eyes, was described to the
psychologists by DR.. F. X. Berrien
Of Colgate University.
It is an opthalmoscope by means
Of which Photographic records can
be made of light. beams reflected
from the corneas of both eyes. He
made his tests with college workers,
C. c. C. workers and migratory farm
workers. Somewhat as in the game
OF murder, subjects were instructed
to commit an imaginary crime
Then they were questioned about it
while their eye movements, as re-
vealed by the light reflections, were
being recorded on Photographic
plate. When these plates were de-
velOped efforts were made to sep
arate the innocent from the guilty.
The procedure was to allow a min
ute of rest after a minute of ques-
tioning. 1t was found that, during
the grilling, the eyes of the inno-
cent shifted as much as did those
Of the guilty. During the rest Pc
riod, however. those of the innocent
continued to shift just as much as
before while those of the guilty
tended to become stabilized.
Here's the Catch.
The theory, DR.. Berrien explained,
is that persons with something to
conceal try deliberately to control
their eye movements. 1t requires
about a minute to establish this
control.
While this lie detector is far from
infallible, he said, it rates well with
other devices for the same purpose.
In IS per cent of the cases no differ
l.