But the experiments which have been carried on in establishments with scientific management speak decidedly against such a supposition.  A tyrannical demand for silence would, of course, be felt as cruelty, and no suggestion of a jail-like discipline would be wise in the case of industrial labor, for evident psychological reasons.  But various factories in rearranging their establishments according to the principles of scientific management have changed the positions of the workmen so that conversations become more difficult or impossible.  The result reported seems to be everywhere a significant increase of production.  The individual concentrates his mind on the task with an intensity which seems beyond his reach as long as the inner attitude is adjusted to social contact.  The help which is rendered by the feeling of social cooeperation, on the other hand, is not removed by the mere abstaining from speaking.  Interesting psychopedagogical experiments have, indeed, demonstrated that working in a common room produces better results than isolated activity.  This is not true of the most brilliant, somewhat nervous school children, who achieve in their own room at home more than in the classroom.  But for the average, which almost alone is in question for life in the factory, the consciousness of common effort is a source of psychophysical reinforcement.  This evidently remains effective when the workingmen can see one another, even if the arrangement of the seats precludes the possibility of chatting during the work.

However, by far the more important cause of distraction of attention lies in those disturbances which come from without.  Here again the chief interest ought to be attached to those interferences which the workman himself no longer feels as such.  In a great printing-shop a woman who was occupied with work which demanded her fullest attention was seated at her task in an aisle where trucking was done.  Removing this operator to a quiet corner caused an increase of 25 per cent in her work.[40] To be sure there are many such disturbances in factory life which can hardly be eliminated with the technical means of to-day.  For instance, the noise of the machines, which in many factories makes it impossible to communicate except by shouting, must be classed among the real psychological interferences in spite of the fact that the laborers themselves usually feel convinced that they no longer notice it at all.  Still more disturbing are strong rhythmical sounds, such as heavy hammer blows which dominate the continuous noises, as they force on every individual consciousness a psychophysical rhythm of reaction which may stand in strong contrast to that of a man’s own work.  From the incessant inner struggle of the two rhythms, the one suggested by the labor, the other by the external intrusion, quick exhaustion becomes unavoidable.