Differences Between Skin Resistance and Skin Conductance Responses with Respect to Change Over Trials: A Mathematical Explanation

The pupillary response to mental overload

The hypothesis that the pupil constricts below base level in situations of mental overload was tested. Subjects had to perform in a four-alternative forced-choice task at 75%, 100%, and 125% the speed of their maximum processing capacity. No indication of a pupillary constriction in the overload situation was found. The pupil dilated under all three conditions. The pupil diameter of male subjects significantly decreased after the sharp increase at the beginning of the experimental phases, while the female subjects’ pupil diameter remained at the same level after the initial increase. The amount of dilation depended on information load for male subjects only. Results were taken as further in…

Some Necessary Revisions of the Neuronal Model Concept of the Orienting Response

Sokolov's neural trace model as well as his entropy model of the orienting response are examined. Both seem inadequate for empirical and theoretical reasons. The role of the relevance aspect of a stimulus is stressed. It is proposed to consider the information transmitted by a stimulus as in some way being weighted by the relevance of the context to which it belongs. It is furthermore proposed to restrict the neural trace concept to the physical properties of the stimulus. Major theoretical gain is achieved by viewing information content of a stimulus and its physical properties independently and by breaking the motivation determining the strength of an orienting response into a situation-s…

How can skin conductance responses increase over trials while skin resistance responses decrease?

It is shown that the opposite trends over trials for conductance and resistance response magnitudes that have been found in recent experiments can be explained entirely by the mathematical relationship between conductance and resistance. Two conditions have to be satisfied for such opposite trends to occur: (1) a substantial increase in conductance level over the course of an experiment, and (2) a certain increase in conductance response magnitudes. The opposition in trends, being due solely to the mathematical relationship between conductance and resistance, should not be eliminated by some “correction” procedure. Instead, conductance should be taken as the appropriate variable. Also, no c…

Perceptual Performance as a Function of Intra-Cycle Cardiac Activity

The purpose of the experiment was to test the hypothesis of a systematic change in perceptual performance within a single cardiac cycle due to the activity of the baroreceptors in carotid sinus. As an index of perceptual performance the ds-parameter from signal detection theory (TSD) was used. A 1000 Hz sine tone had to be detected in a background of white noise. Each of 4 subjects received on the average 4605 noise or noise plus tone stimuli distributed over 10 experimental sessions. When comparing performance during time intervals before and after baroreceptor activity onset no significant difference was found. Also, when tracing perceptual performance over the whole cardiac cycle in step…

War over the brain

Does signal detection methodology allow to measure discrimination, but not pain?

An empirical test of Sokolov's entropy model of the orienting response.

Several hypotheses, most of them deduced from Sokolov's entropy model of the Orienting Response (OR), were tested. The Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) served as the indicator of the OR. Printed language, analyzed with regard to the information content in bits, was used as stimulus material. Forty-eight female students served as subjects. The results indicate: (1) that the uncertainty of a situation does not determine the strength of the OR, (2) that the strength of the OR depends on the information carried by an event, and (3) that the processing of this information, as indicated by the OR, may be delayed by one or more events in a serial application. For tonic level over a series of events no…

Reduction of rating scale data by means of signal detection theory

A d’-index computed from ratings of psychological stimuli does not necessarily represent the unbiased psychological distance between these stimuli. Such ratings may not be considered as discrimination tasks in the signal detection sense, because the rater has to discriminate between the psychological impact of the stimuli on some internal continuum rather than between the stimuli as such. The rater therefore can use stimulus-specific criteria for his decisions. As a result, the d’-index computed from the rating data will be biased.