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EFFECTS OF FUNCTIONAL TRANSECTION OF THE SPINAL CORD ON TASK PERFORMANCE UNDER VARIED MOTIVATIONAL CONDITIONS
Author(s) -
Hester Gene A.
Publication year - 1971
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1971.tb00477.x
Subject(s) - psychology , spinal cord , cognition , spinal cord injury , task (project management) , affect (linguistics) , neuroscience , coding (social sciences) , physical medicine and rehabilitation , medicine , communication , management , economics , statistics , mathematics
This investigation represented an effort to apply an activation theory of motivation to analyzing the performance capabilities of spinal‐cord injured patients. The specific hypothesis was that the reduction of peripheral inputs to the brain resulting from functional spinal‐cord transection affects both cognitive and non‐cognitive task performance under specified motivational conditions. A verbal, serial‐coding task was chosen for study since it requires sustained attention, yet its performance is not prejudiced by the specific sensory and motor losses resulting from spinal‐cord injury. The performance of 20 patients with functionally complete transections of the cervical or upper thoracic cord was compared with that of 20 normal S s matched with the patients for age, educational attainment, and verbal I.Q. All S s performed the task under low, medium, and high incentive conditions so that the effects of different motivational levels could be assessed. The two groups were also compared on a non‐cognitive, reaction time task involving EMG recordings of the frontalis muscle. Quantitative analysis of the results indicated that functional spinal‐cord transection does not substantially affect serial‐coding performance under varied incentive conditions or the speed of motor responses.