AbstractsPsychology

The chief objectives of this study were as follows: 1. To construct a theory of sensory interaction which will generate testable hypotheses concerning the relationship between autonomic activity and visual sensitivity. 2. To investigate experimentally the relationship between autonomic activity and visual sensitivity. 3 To demonstrate the predictive power of the theory. A review of the literature on intersensory sensitivity effects clearly indicates that the work in this area is not nearly so extensive as that in the investigation of single sensory effects. Furthermore, analysis of the work that has been done is complicated by a lack of standardization of experimental procedure. It seems, however, on the basis of what has been reported, fairly safe to assume that stimulation of one sensory system can affect performance in another sensory system; that the result of this interaction may be either facilitating or inhibiting; that the intensity of an auxiliary stimulus probably determines whether that stimulus will be facilitating or inhibiting in its effects. Also, it appears that interoceptive stimuli may operate in a similar fashion to exteroceptive stimuli in respect to intersensory phenomena. The theories proposed to explain intersensory effects have, in general, been based upon either neurological or gestalt models. None of the theories reviewed yields an explicit quantitative statement of change in sensory response as a function of an auxiliary stimulus. The theory presented in this study was intended to be applicable to all sensory systems. It was used in this study, however, to generate an experimental hypothesis relating specifically to vision and autonomic activity. The theory was presented in two designs. The first is a formal structural model. The second is a mathematical model in intervening variable form which was suggested by the structural model. The experimental hypothesis in this study was deduced from the set of mathematical postulates. In general terms, the theory states the relative magnitude and direction of change in sensitivity to a given stimulus(delta K1) as a function of the intensity of concurrent stimulation in another modality (S2). It is predicted that as S2 increases in intensity, the form of delta K1 will show an increase of sensitivity followed by a decrease of sensitivity. Two male college freshmen were used as subjects in this experiment. For each subject, GSR was recorded continuously and concurrently with a recording of visual threshold responses. GSR's were evoked by reading so-called neutral and complex words to the subject. Visual thresholds obtained during the thirty second period just before the reading of a word, and the thresholds obtained during the thirty seconds following the onset of the GSR were each averaged. The differences and the direction of the differences between these threshold averages represented the change in visual sensitivity associated with each given GSR. The obtained GSR values were converted into conductance units and in this form were considered to be…