[44]
The influences of the daily temperature, of the weather and of the
seasons may be classed among the physical conditions of efficiency. We
may group with them the effects of nourishment, of stimulants, of
sleep, and so on. As far as the relations between these external
factors and purely bodily muscle work are involved, the interests of
the psychologists are not engaged. But it is evident that every one of
these relations also has its psychological aspect, and that a really
scientific psychotechnical treatment of these problems can become
possible only through the agency of psychological experiments. We have
excellent experimental investigations concerning the influence of the
loss of sleep on intellectual labor and on simple psychomotor
activities. But it would be rather arbitrary to deduce from the
results of those researches anything as to the effect of reduction of
sleep on special economic occupations. Yet such knowledge would be of
high importance. We have in the literature concerned with accidents in
transportation numerous popular discussions about the destructive
influence of loss of sleep on the attention of the locomotive engineer
or of the helmsman or of the chauffeur, but an analysis of the
particular psychophysical processes does not as yet exist and can be
expected only from systematic experiments. Nor has the influence of
hunger on psychotechnical activities been studied in a satisfactory
way.
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