An excellent investigation of this
caffein effect on various psychological and psychomotor functions has
recently been completed.[48] When the caffein effect on tapping
movements was studied, it was found that it works as a stimulation,
sometimes preceded by a slight initial retardation. It persists from
one to two hours after doses of from one to three grains and as long
as four hours after doses of six grains. The steadiness test showed a
slight nervousness after several hours after doses of from one to four
grains. After six grains there is pronounced unsteadiness. A complex
test in cooerdination indicated that the effect of small, amounts of
caffein is a stimulation and that of large amounts a retardation.
Correspondingly the speed of performance in typewriting is heightened
by small doses of caffein and retarded by larger doses. In both cases
the quality of the performance as measured by the number of errors is
superior to the normal result.
The influences of the physiological stimulants have many points of
contact with the effects of social entertainment, the significance of
which for the economic life is still rather unknown in any exact
detail. Many factories in which the labor is noiseless, as in the
making of cigars, have introduced gramophone music or reading aloud,
and it is easy to understand theoretically that a certain animating
effect results, which stimulates the whole psychophysical activity But
only the experiment would be able to decide how this stimulation is
related, for instance, to the distraction of attention, which is
necessarily involved, or how it influences various periods of the work
and various types of work, how far it is true that the musical key
exerts an exciting or relaxing influence, what intensity and what
local position, what rhythm and what duration of such aesthetic
stimuli, would bring the best possible economic results.
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