Orienting, Habituation, and Resource Allocation: An Associative Analysis

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of the most appropriate theoretical account of the phenomena of orienting and habituation. Several lines of evidence are reviewed. First, it is argued that the effects of stimulus omission require a comparator theory in which it is asserted that responses to iterated events result from a comparison between predicted and actual stimulus input. Second, the data from studies in which paired stimulus events are employed seem, at least at first sight, to be best explained in terms of a comparator theory in which a key role is ascribed to associative processes. Third, secondary task probe reaction time data indicate that events that elicit orienting also command processing resources, and that habituation involves changes in the manner in which events are processed. Finally, recent data on the effects of intermodality change indicate that electrodermal responses are larger on the change trial than on the first habituation training trial; these results seem problematical for noncomparator theories. However, other data on the context-specificity of habituation and on the effects of stimulus miscuing cast doubt on the usefulness of an associative analysis as a general account of habituation phenomena. Nevertheless, the weight of evidence seems to indicate that an adequate theory of human habituation must include a comparison process and must acknowledge that orienting and habituation involve a re-allocation of attentional resources.

Learning about pain: The neural substrate of the prediction error for aversive events

“…These accounts predict that EP1 evokes more attention and͞or arousal than does EP2 because omission of pain is more surprising at EP1 (52). In contrast, we found PPC activation during EP2 relative to EP1 (Fig.…”

High working memory capacity attenuates the deviation effect but not the changing-state effect: Further support for the duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction

“…In Experiment 2, the disruption was produced by tones in order to determine whether the same pattern of results would generalize across speech and nonspeech sounds. demonstrated habituation toward the disruptive effects of deviating sounds on task performance (e.g., Debener, Kranczioch, Herrmann, & Engel, 2002;Friedman, Cycowicz, & Gaeta, 2001;Siddle, 1991;Sokolov, 1963), but people seem unable to habituate to the effects of changingstate sound sequences on serial recall (Ellermeier & Zimmer, 1997;Jones, Macken, & Mosdell, 1997;Tremblay & Jones, 1998). These results lean toward the possibility that the changing-state effect and the deviation effect are caused by qualitatively different mechanisms.…”

Neural Mechanisms of Involuntary Attention to Acoustic Novelty and Change

“…Further evidence was provided by RTs to probe stimuli in a secondary task (Dawson, 1990;Posner, 1978). These RTs were prolonged when target stimuli were preceded by unexpected, irrelevant changes in the repetitive stimuli delivered in the primary task, indicating, according to the authors, that processing resources were engaged by these stimulus changes occurring in the primary task (Dawson, Fillion, & Schell, 1989;Fillion, Dawson, Schell, & Hazlett, 1991;Siddle, 1991;Woodward, Brown, March, & Dawson, 1991).…”