Evening star., 1940-10-15
Navy Doctors Search
For Test 10 Gauge
Physiological Fear
Would Apply System
To Determine CIeorness
Of Thinking in Danger
Ninth OF a Series.
By THOMAS r. HENRY

A fear test is sought by United
States Navy doctors.
Already some experimental work,
the nature of which cannot be dl-
vulged, has been carried out to de-
termine whether a man retains his
full capacities in the face of death,
Present methods of war place
more and more stress on individual
lack of fear in extreme situations.
It is not, the doctors explain, a
search for some way to sift out
towards. Cowardice and lack of
fear may be quite different, and
failure to pass such a test would be
no discredit on the individual. A
man might steel himself to take
any sort of chance. The search is
not for men willing to die, but for
men who. in the face of death, re-
Tested for ClaustrOphobia.
A crude test of this sort already
has been used with some prospective
submarine crews There is psychic
condition known as claustrophobia
which afflicts many persons, which
some psychiatrists believe is very
deep-seated in the organism, and
which one may not be able to
overcome by training. 1t is fear of
closed places, especially narrow
rooms in the dark. A very brave
man might go completely to pieces
with an attack of claustrophobia
and it would be especially unfortu-
nate in the case of an officer or
sailor on a submarine, where one
hysterical move might be fatal to
the entire crew.
Candidates for submarine service
are placed in pressure chamber to
test other reactions. This is sltua-
ton calculated to cause clauStro-
phobic attack. The man is entirely
surrounded in narrow space and
in darkness The emotional reac-
tions he is undergoing can be de-
termined effectively by the escape
of gases from his body, indicating
the rate at which he is breathing
Afterward the man might deny he
had felt any fear. Another test is
that of an escape to the surface from
depth of about 100 feat. At the
New London station, where many
of these tests are conducted, it is
pitch dark at that depth.
Nav Apply to Tanks.
Neither of these tests is entirely
standardized and the claustrophobia
indications are incidental to other
purposes. But they point the way
Navy doctors say, to what is needed
In other lines. Tank crews also
might be incapacitated by this neu-
rosis, which is beyond the control
of the individual.
A field in which a fear test is
especially needed, it is pointed out
by Capt. Dallas G. Sutton, COM
mandant of the Navy Medical
School in Washington, is one which
can be used with prospective avia-
tors. The flyer also may be=en1
closed in narrow place, the cock
pit. He may suffer from the opposite
condition, agorophobia, or fear OF
open places, as he finds himself
alone above the clouds with no land
mark in sight. Or he may be frozen
by a vague, generallzed fear OF
death. In such a condition he is
incompetent to perform the deli
cate operations essential to flying
and this may be the cause Of many
wrecks.
There is no known way of testing
this. Capt. Sutton points out, al
though all the other skills and
reaction speeds necessary to the
aviator can be determined. Some
years ago, he explained, a cockpit
was rigged up at the Naval Air
School at Pensacola which could
be manipulated in almost any way
by a man in another room. The
prospective pilot was placed in this
apparatus and obliged to handle
the plane" in all sorts of surprise
situations.
The hidden tester, for example,
might suddenly turn it upside down
80 that the candidate was standing
on his head. He might throw it
unexpectedly. into a dive or put II
through any other movements which
a pilot might encounter. Could the
man keep his head under these con-
ditions? Usually. says Capt. Sutton
he could. The essential element OF
a real test was lacking-fear
Common sense told the candidate
that the Navy had not put him into
this cockpit to kill him, that even
II he was seriously injured there
would be a first-class scandal, and
that whatever happened he was not
going to be hurt. 1t wasn't a game
"for keeps"
Must Be unsupported.
ANY valid fear test must be un-
suspected by the man taking it and
must be in terms of reactions which
he cannot control by will power. In
the old style of warfare man In
deadly fear might have the "guts'
to do anything required of him
walk, for example. into a flaming
wall of enemy fire. He would be sup
ported in his determination by the
example OF comrades all around him
and steeled to danger by the strict
discipline to which he had been SUBJ
tected. But it would require every
thing he had to do it. 1t is that kind
of courage which is displayed by the
advancing infantrymen. Such a man
would have nothing left for the split
second operations required OF a
flyer in action or of submarine
sailor in the face of disaster.
The kind of fear the Navy wants
10 test is not moral but physiological
the fear not of the mind but OF
the ancient autonomic nervous sys-
tenn and the deep buried basa!
nuclei of the brain which are the
seats of the instincts.
The term coward" would have
no application at all, although
failure to pass fear test might bt
unjustly interpreted in that way Il
a. .r.~ hacap,e kpour1