Abstract
The role of tissue deprivation as a determinant of acoustic-induced reflexive startle responses is unclear, variously having been shown to potentiate, retard, or have no effect at all. The present is a preliminary evaluation of certain procedural features upon which various apparently contradictory outcomes have rested. Two large groups, one satiated and the other made 46-h hungry, were divided so that half of each received nine consecutive startle test sessions beginning with the initial 46- to 48-h hunger cycle and spaced every 2 days thereafter. Testing was delayed until the last two sessions for the remaining group halves. Although standard startle habituation functions across sessions and trials within sessions were obtained, reliable differences traceable to hunger did not occur for any test circumstance. External validity remains a difficult commodity to come by for any of the hunger-startle effects thus far reported.
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Anderson, D. C, Crowell, C. R., & Brown, J. S. Startle potentiation and heart-rate as affected by hunger and fear. Manuscript submitted for publication, 1981. (Available from D. C. Anderson, Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556.)
Meryman, J. J. Magnitude of startle as a function of hunger and fear. Unpublished Master’s thesis, State University of Iowa, 1952.
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Anderson, D.C., Sergio, J.P. & Ewing, M. Food deprivation and startle magnitude: inhibition, potentiation, or neither?. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 19, 165–168 (1982). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03330220
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03330220