Pathology of Lying [108]
that one day he would cry and apologize, and on another would show stupid bravado. As the judge stated, John had long been in disciplinary institutions and this had failed to do any good. The immediately peculiar features of the case were that while he was being held for vagrancy and robbery, John made a strong attempt to implicate himself in a murder case. In other words he was a self-accuser.
We found a strong young man of 19 years; weight 157 lbs., height 5 ft. 5 in. Very broad shouldered and deep chested, but slouchy attitude. Good color. Eyes bright. Varicocele. Somewhat defective vision in one eye. Well-shaped head--circumference 56.5, length 18.5 and breadth 16 cm. Thick, heavy voice. Appears dull and depressed, but energizes under encouragement. Other physical examination negative. Complains merely of headaches in left frontal region, but says he has had these only since last year when he was struck there by a beer bottle. Recently an excessive user of tobacco.
In the mental examination we found much of interest. When first seen he gave every appearance of being a mental defective, but by judicious stimulation he could be waked up to do comparatively good work in several directions. On the Binet tests, 1911 series, he passed all but one of the 12 year set; in that he followed the suggestion offered. On the 15 year old tests he did three out of five. The failures were on the memory span of figures and in the repetition of a sentence of 26 syllables.
By our other tests we also found him defective in verbal memory processes, even when he read the passage to be remembered. In working with our so-called construction tests, where his success depended not only upon planning with concrete material, but even more on the ability to profit by his failures, he did decidedly poorly. In handling the puzzle box, where above everything is required perception of the relationship of one step to another, he succeeded very rapidly. With the cross-line tests, which require mental representation of an easily remembered figure and analysis of its parts, he did very poorly, succeeding only after the third attempt in each of the two simple tests. This is a
type of work that is especially easy for the normal person.
In our ``Aussage'' or Testimony Test we got a decidedly poor result. At first enumeration he gave only 8 items, and on cross questioning gave only 6 more. He denied seeing other objects plain in the picture, but contradicted himself somewhat on this. It is interesting that he took only one out of four suggestions, notwithstanding his suggestibility on the Binet test.
On school work he does altogether much better. He writes a good hand, reads fairly well, and promptly does a sum in long division. He claims to have reached the 6th grade. One difficulty in testing him was his prevailing lethargy. We constantly had to fight this by encouragement. Once he insisted he must give up the work because he had not had a smoke for an hour or so. Altogether, including his irregularities, we could not call him lower than poor in ability, possibly subnormal. He did not come within the limits of the feebleminded group. Just where to place him would depend upon what he perhaps could do under other more favorable conditions. So much for the tests of ability.
In studying him for aberrational tendencies there were positive indications. Most significant it was when, in the Binet tests, he came to the word ``justice'' and turned to the examiner, saying feelingly, ``I don't know what that is,'' and then burst into tears. Yet this was from a fellow who had offered to get himself into even worse trouble with the courts. He made much of his worrying about not having any home and not being the child of his so-called parents. His attitude was of sorrow and hopelessness about his whole situation in life. As seen again about two weeks later, still more evidences of aberration were found. He contradicted himself then in regard to his previous stories, in regard to his home life, denied he had made
We found a strong young man of 19 years; weight 157 lbs., height 5 ft. 5 in. Very broad shouldered and deep chested, but slouchy attitude. Good color. Eyes bright. Varicocele. Somewhat defective vision in one eye. Well-shaped head--circumference 56.5, length 18.5 and breadth 16 cm. Thick, heavy voice. Appears dull and depressed, but energizes under encouragement. Other physical examination negative. Complains merely of headaches in left frontal region, but says he has had these only since last year when he was struck there by a beer bottle. Recently an excessive user of tobacco.
In the mental examination we found much of interest. When first seen he gave every appearance of being a mental defective, but by judicious stimulation he could be waked up to do comparatively good work in several directions. On the Binet tests, 1911 series, he passed all but one of the 12 year set; in that he followed the suggestion offered. On the 15 year old tests he did three out of five. The failures were on the memory span of figures and in the repetition of a sentence of 26 syllables.
By our other tests we also found him defective in verbal memory processes, even when he read the passage to be remembered. In working with our so-called construction tests, where his success depended not only upon planning with concrete material, but even more on the ability to profit by his failures, he did decidedly poorly. In handling the puzzle box, where above everything is required perception of the relationship of one step to another, he succeeded very rapidly. With the cross-line tests, which require mental representation of an easily remembered figure and analysis of its parts, he did very poorly, succeeding only after the third attempt in each of the two simple tests. This is a
type of work that is especially easy for the normal person.
In our ``Aussage'' or Testimony Test we got a decidedly poor result. At first enumeration he gave only 8 items, and on cross questioning gave only 6 more. He denied seeing other objects plain in the picture, but contradicted himself somewhat on this. It is interesting that he took only one out of four suggestions, notwithstanding his suggestibility on the Binet test.
On school work he does altogether much better. He writes a good hand, reads fairly well, and promptly does a sum in long division. He claims to have reached the 6th grade. One difficulty in testing him was his prevailing lethargy. We constantly had to fight this by encouragement. Once he insisted he must give up the work because he had not had a smoke for an hour or so. Altogether, including his irregularities, we could not call him lower than poor in ability, possibly subnormal. He did not come within the limits of the feebleminded group. Just where to place him would depend upon what he perhaps could do under other more favorable conditions. So much for the tests of ability.
In studying him for aberrational tendencies there were positive indications. Most significant it was when, in the Binet tests, he came to the word ``justice'' and turned to the examiner, saying feelingly, ``I don't know what that is,'' and then burst into tears. Yet this was from a fellow who had offered to get himself into even worse trouble with the courts. He made much of his worrying about not having any home and not being the child of his so-called parents. His attitude was of sorrow and hopelessness about his whole situation in life. As seen again about two weeks later, still more evidences of aberration were found. He contradicted himself then in regard to his previous stories, in regard to his home life, denied he had made