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THE EFFECTS OF ANXIETY ON THE RELATION BETWEEN REACTION TIME AND STIMULUS LIGHT INTENSITY
Author(s) -
COSTELLO C. G.
Publication year - 1968
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1968.tb01159.x
Subject(s) - psychology , stimulus (psychology) , anxiety , audiology , developmental psychology , subliminal stimuli , neuroscience , cognitive psychology , psychiatry , medicine
A number of investigators have found that, under normal conditions, RTs grow shorter with an increase in stimulus intensity. Other investigators have found a flattening of the curve relating RTs to stimulus light intensity and in some instances a paradoxical increase in RTs at high intensities for schizophrenics, subjects with independently measured ‘weak’ nervous systems and subjects administered caffeine. The latter findings have been interpreted in terms of the development of transmarginal inhibition consequent upon high levels of excitation having been reached. The findings of the study reported here suggest that these paradoxical relations between RTs and stimulus intensity do not occur in subjects classified as anxious on the basis of the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale. They suggest that they do occur when subjects are threatened with shock for poor performance. The effect, however, appears to be a transitory one, disappearing with repeated testing.