A Comparison of Judgments for Weights Lifted with the Hand and Foot

Abstract

This series of experiments, begun in October, I899, was undertaken for the purpose of determining the relative sensibility for lifted-weights through large and small muscles. At first attempts were made to use the large muscles of the leg and a flexor muscle of one of the fingers. That selection of muscles was soon abandoned because of the extreme difficulty, if not impossibility, of experimenting with the two muscles under anything like similar conditions. Finally it was decided to use the hand and foot as involving in a general way, large and small muscles. This then turns away, in part, from the original problem, but still involves the original to the extent that the muscles of the leg are larger than than those of the arm. Though suggestive, the experiments are in no wise conclusive as to the large and small muscle problem.2 After various attempts to eliminate the weight of the arm and leg, partly or wholly, this idea also was abandoned. It was taken up, however, in a second series of 4,500 tests not reported in this paper. The following is a report on 9,o00 of the total i8,ooo tests made. It is hoped that there is here furnished a reasonably safe answer to the question implied in the title of the paper, at least for one reagent. The standard weights selected for this series of experiments are nine: Ioo, 400, 800, 1,200, i,6oo, 2,000, 2,400, 2,800, and 3,200 grams respectively. Upon testing, the last weight proved to be about one-fourth of the reagent's maximum lift with the outstretched arm. The maximum lift for the leg proved to be about equal to that of the arm. It was at first the intention to include larger standards up to