Effects of stimulus modality and task condition on blink startle modification and on electrodermal responses

Abstract

Participants in Experiments 1 and 2 performed a discrimination and counting task to assess the effect of lead stimulus modality on attentional modification of the acoustic startle reflex. Modality of the discrimination stimuli was changed across subjects. Electrodermal responses were larger during task-relevant stimuli than during task-irrelevant stimuli in all conditions. Larger blink magnitude facilitation was found during auditory and visual task-relevant stimuli, but not for tactile stimuli. Experiment 3 used acoustic, visual, and tactile conditioned stimuli (CSs) in differential conditioning with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US). Startle magnitude facilitation and electrodermal responses were larger during a CS that preceded the US than during a CS that was presented alone regardless of lead stimulus modality. Although not unequivocal, the present data pose problems for attentional accounts of blink modification that emphasize the importance of lead stimulus modality.

Modification of the human blink reflex by transient and sustained features of acoustic prestimulation

“…found prestimulus augmentation of blink at a 2,000-msec SOA that was stable over the testing session, a finding replicated in a second experiment. Lipp, Siddle, and Dall (1998) found that the blink reflex was augmented by acoustic and visual, but not vibrotactile,prestimuli presented at SOAs of 3,500 and 4,500 msec. Other studies, however, have not reported clear augmentation with sustained prestimuli.…”

The effect of stimulus modality and task difficulty on attentional modulation of blink startle

“…The longer than usual lead stimulus has been 7 s in duration, compared to the usual duration of 5 s. In the research reported to date, the stimulus modality of the lead stimulus has been varied and an acoustic blink‐eliciting stimulus has been used. It has been reported that blink magnitude is larger and blink latency is shorter during task‐relevant lead stimuli than during task‐irrelevant lead stimuli when the lead stimuli are presented in the acoustic and visual modalities (Böhmelt, Schell, & Dawson, 1999; Filion et al, 1993; Lipp, Neumann, Pretorius, & McHugh, 2003; Lipp, Siddle, & Dall, 1997, 1998). No difference between task‐relevant and task‐irrelevant lead stimuli has been found when tactile lead stimuli are used (Lipp et al, 1998).…”

“…It has been reported that blink magnitude is larger and blink latency is shorter during task‐relevant lead stimuli than during task‐irrelevant lead stimuli when the lead stimuli are presented in the acoustic and visual modalities (Böhmelt, Schell, & Dawson, 1999; Filion et al, 1993; Lipp, Neumann, Pretorius, & McHugh, 2003; Lipp, Siddle, & Dall, 1997, 1998). No difference between task‐relevant and task‐irrelevant lead stimuli has been found when tactile lead stimuli are used (Lipp et al, 1998). This null finding may reflect that the tactile lead stimulus used in previous research has consisted of a discontinuous vibration pulsed at a frequency of 50 Hz.…”

“…Lipp et al (1998, 2003) have interpreted the previous research to suggest that the blink facilitation observed during the discrimination and counting task reflects modality nonspecific attentional processing. This interpretation is in contrast to earlier views about the relationship between stimulus modality and attentional blink modulation.…”

Spontaneous and reflexive eye activity measures of mental workload

“…Modality-specific blink modulation has not been found during some types of tasks. These have included a discrimination and counting task (Lipp, Siddle, & Dall, 1998), an intermodality change task (Lipp, Siddle, & Dall, 2000b), and a reaction time task (Lipp, Siddle, & Dall, 2000a).…”