Abstract
The study examined whether complete omission of a tone stimulus following its repeated presentation would elicit an electrodermal orienting response and whether the factors of stimulus significance and subject lability influenced the probability and magnitude of any response to omission. A statistically significant increase in response on omission trials over that in control periods without stimulation preceding omission was observed. The omission effect was more likely to occur with labile subjects, those showing high levels of nonspecific electrodermal activity, than with stabiles; stimulus significance was not found to exert any systematic effect. Contrary to expectation, a measure of EEG alpha activity included in the study failed to show the omission effect. The failure was attributed to problems of measurement. Incidental findings of the study refute an arousal interpretation of electrodermal lability.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Cooper, C. L., Ashe, J. H., & Weinberger, N. M. (1978). Effects of stimulus omission during habituation of the pupillary dilation reflex. Physiological Psychology, 6, 1–6.
Groves, P. M., & THOMPSON, R. F. (1970). Habituation: A dual process theory. Psychological Review, 77, 419–450.
Katkin, E. S. (1975). Electrodermal lability: A psychophysiological analysis of individual difference in response to stress. In I. G. Sarason & C. D. Spielberger (Eds.), Stress and anxiety (Vol. 2). New York: Wiley.
Kimble, G. A. (1967). Attitudinal factors in eyelid conditioning. In G. A. Kimble (Ed.), Foundations of conditioning and learning. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Kleinman, K. M., & Stern, J. A. (1968). Task complexity, electrodermal activity and reaction time. Psychophysiology, 5, 51–60.
Lacey, J. I., & Lacey, B. C. (1958). The relationship of resting autonomic activity to motor impulsivity. Research Publication of the Association for Nervous and Mental Diseases, 36, 144–209.
Martin, I., & Rust, J. (1976). Habituation and the structure of the electrodermal system. Psychophysiology, 13, 554–562.
O’Gorman, J. G. (1979). The oriention reflex: Novelty or significance detector? Psychophysiology, 16, 253–262.
O’Gorman, J. G., & Lloyd, J. E. M. (1976). Alpha blocking to the omission of a stimulus. Physiological Psychology, 4, 285–288.
Picton, T. W., Hillyard, S. A., & Galambos, R. (1974). Cortical evoked responses to omitted stimuli. In M. N. Livanov (Ed.), Major problems in brain electrophysiology (pp. 302-311). Moscow: U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences.
Ray, R. L., PIROCH, J. F., & RIMMEL, H. D. (1977). The effect of task and stimulus variability on habituation of electrodermal and vasomotor reactions. Physiological Psychology, 5, 189–196.
Ruchkin, D. S., & Sutton, S. (1973). Visual evoked and emitted potentials and stimulus significance. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 2, 144–146.
Siddle, D. A. T., & Heron, P. A. (1975). Stimulus omission and recovery of the electrodermal and digital vasoconstrictive components of the orienting response. Biological Psychology, 3, 277–293.
Sokolov, E. N. (1963). Perception and the conditioned reflex. Oxford: Pergamon.
Sokolov, E. N. (1969). The modelling properties of the nervous system. In M. Cole & I. Maltzman (Eds.), A handbook of contemporary Soviet psychology. New York: Basic Books.
Venables, P. H., & Christie, M. J. (1973). Mechanisms, instrumentation, recording techniques, and quantification of responses. In W. F. Prokasy & D. C. Raskin (Eds.), Electrodermal activity in psychological research. New York: Academic Press.
Venables, P. H., & Martin, I. (1967). Skin resistance and skin potential. In P. H. Venables & I. Martin (Eds.), A manual of psychophysiological methods. Amsterdam: North Holland.
Voronin, L. G., Bonfitto, M., & Vasilieva, V. M. (1975). The interrelation of the orienting reaction and conditioned reflex to time. In E. N. Sokolov & O. S. Vinogradova (Eds.), Neuronal mechanisms of the orienting reflex. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Voronin, L. G., & Sokolov, E. N. (1960). Cortical mechanisms of the orienting reflex and its relation to the conditioned reflex. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, Suppl. 13, 335–346.
Winer, B. J. (1962). Statistical principles in experimental design. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This work has benefited from discussions with David Siddle, from the reading of an as yet unpublished manuscript by Robert Barry, and from the comments, on an earlier version of this article, of Edward Katkin and Keith Wilson and another (anonymous) reviewer.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
O’Gorman, J.G., Lloyd, J.E.M. Electrodermal orienting to stimulus omission. Psychobiology 12, 147–152 (1984). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03332181
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03332181