Effects of auditory stimulus intensity on response force in simple, go/no-go, and choice RT tasks

Abstract

In four experiments, increasing the intensities of both relevant and irrelevant auditory stimuli was found to increase response force (RF) in simple, go/no-go, and choice reaction time (RT) tasks. These results raise problems for models that localize the effects of auditory intensity on purely perceptual processes, indicating instead that intensity also affects motor output processes under many circumstances. In Experiment 1, simple RT, go/no-go, and choice RT tasks were compared, using the same stimuli for all tasks. Auditory stimulus intensity affected both RT and RF, and these effects were not modulated by task. In Experiments 2-4, an irrelevant auditory accessory stimulus accompanied a relevant visual stimulus, and the go/no-go and choice tasks were used. The intensity of the irrelevant auditory accessory stimulus was found to affect RT and RF, although the sizes of these effects depended somewhat on the temporal predictability of the accessory stimulus.It is well known that subjects in reaction time (RT) tasks respond faster to bright or loud stimuli than to dim or soft ones (see, e.g., Kohfeld, 1971). This effect is not surprising, because sensory and perceptual processing are clearly faster for more intense physical stimuli (Levick, 1973). Indeed, it is often assumed that the effects of stimulus intensity on RT can be accounted for entirely within the sensory and perceptual systems (see, e.g., Burbeck & Luce, 1982;Hildreth, 1979;Smith, 1995;Sternberg, 1969; Vaughan, Costa, & Gilden, 1966).Contrary to this view, however, there is evidence that stimulus intensity can affect response processes as well as perceptual ones. First, stimulus intensity has been found to influence the forcefulness of responses. For example, Angel (1973) examined stimulus intensity effects on RT and response force (RF) in simple RT tasks using visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli. In each trial, he recorded the full force-time function of the response and found that the peak of this function increased with stimulus inten- sity for all modalities. Ulrich, Rinkenauer, and Miller (1998) successfully replicated Angel's result for both auditory and visual stimuli, and Jaskowski, Rybarczyk, Jaroszyk, and Lemanski (1995) replicated it for auditory stimuli, although not for visual ones. Clearly, an influence of intensity on RF indicates that intensity must have some effect on the response system, even if this effect is contingent on and mediated by the perceptual analysis of the stimulus input. Using similar logic, Abrams and BaIota (1991) and Balota and Abrams (1995) have demonstrated that response dynamics are influenced by more cognitive factors, such as word frequency and memory set size, and have therefore concluded that these factors influence motor stages as well as perceptual and decisionmaking ones.Second, auditory stimulus intensity has been found to influence the variability of the response system in simple RT tasks. Ulrich and Stapf (1984) asked subjects to respond with both hands simultaneously in a simple RT task, and they c...

Impact of contingency manipulations on accessory stimulus effects

“…Furthermore, response force was in line with the RT data, because participants also responded more forcefully with a tone than without one. Thus, we also replicated the recent findings of Miller et al (1999;see also Stahl & Rammsayer, 2005) showing that accessory stimuli affect response output patterns.…”

“…Response force has been shown to be a useful supplementary measure in RT experiments, because it provides additional ways of testing chronometric theories (e.g., Abrams & Balota, 1991;Balota & Abrams, 1995;Giray & Ulrich, 1993;Ulrich, Mattes, & Miller, 1999;Ulrich, Rinkenauer, & Miller, 1998). As already mentioned, for example, the finding that accessory stimuli increase response force suggests that at least some of their effects involve motor output processes (e.g., Miller et al, 1999;Stahl & Rammsayer, 2005). Furthermore, there are also dissociable effects on RTs and response force.…”

“…One of the major debates concerns the issue of which processing stages are influenced by an accessory tone (Hackley & Valle-Inclán, 1998, 2003Miller, Franz, & Ulrich, 1999;Nakano, 2002;Stahl & Rammsayer, 2005). In principle, at least three different positions can be identified.…”

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“…Although it is not completely clear on which stages arousal exerts its effect, there is some indirect evidence that motor processes are also affected. For instance, participants respond more forcefully to loud than to soft sounds (Ja kowski, Rybarczyk, Jaroszyk, & Lema ski, 1995;Miller, Franz, & Ulrich, 1999). This effect is usually assigned to arousal.…”

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