[Effects of stimulus modality and task instruction upon the orienting response].
The purpose of this study is to confirm that habituated orienting response (OR) is evoked when the visual and auditory stimuli are bimodally presented. In Exp. I, either visual or auditory stimulus was exposed to 20 subjects in both habituation- and test-periods. In Exp. II, the visual and auditory stimuli were exposed conversely over the habituation- (either stimulus) and the test-periods (both stimuli). A half of the 20 subjects was instructed to pedal only when the test-stimulus was presented (Experimental Group; E-G), while the other half did not receive the instruction (Control Group; C-G). Results are as follows; the amplitude of skin conductance response (SCR) to the test-stimulus was significantly larger in the E-G than the C-G in the two experiments. However, a significant increase of the SCR amplitude of the E-G to the habituation-stimulus was obtained only in the Exp. II. These tendencies indicated the occurrence of "selective" OR. In addition, the above OR to the habituation-stimulus suggested that "alertive" OR was evoked here by the presentation of stimuli in different modality.
Imai
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A
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Letters, Nagoya University.
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004553:Electric Conductivity; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012879:Skin Physiological Phenomena; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis