Reaction time as a function of manifest anxiety and stimulus intensity.

Wenar, Charles

doi:10.1037/h0062441

Cited by 41 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 12 publications

(7 reference statements)

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“…Simple auditory reaction time did not discriminate between the groups either but the patients showed much greater variability in their responses than the controls. This may help to explain the conflicting results of Wenar (1954) and Kamin and Clark (1957) who found respectively that reaction time was decreased and prolonged in their high anxiety groups. A difference between sexes, males responding faster than females, in this case irrespective of group, is an established finding (Woodworth and Schlosberg, 1954).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Physiological and psychological measures in anxious patients

1974

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SYSNOPSISThirty drug-free patients suffering from chronic anxiety states were compared with 30 normal controls matched for age, sex, and social class on a variety of physiological and psychological measures. The tests included the electroencephalogram, the auditory evoked response, and skin conductance recorded during a passive and an active condition and auditory reaction time, the digit symbol substitution test, and arithmetic. The patients showed increased EEG voltage, shorter latencies of the evoked response, higher skin conductance levels, higher pulse rate and less pupillary constriction, and they responded less to the increase in activation. They also showed impairment on complex psychological tests. It is concluded that pathological anxiety involves an increase in arousal irrelevant to the task and has a disorganizing rather than a facilitating effect on performance.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Physiological and psychological measures in anxious patients

1974

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“…In 21 out of 25 independent samples, the differences in Rr scores have favored the high-anxiety Ss (Spence, 1964). Experiments using R, measures are rare, but there is a reaction-time experiment by Wenar (1954) which involved a single dominant response under variations of S,,,, and R,,, factors. Wenar reported chat his anxious Ss had significantly shorter mean reaction time than his non-anxious Ss and that an increase in stimulus intensity also produced lower reaction latencies.…”

mentioning

confidence: 95%

Discrimination Reaction Performance as a Function of Anxiety and Sex Parameters

Noble¹,

Hays²

1966

Percept Mot Skills

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From a sample of 681 college undergraduates 4 groups of 20Ss of each sex (M, F ) , comparable in age and reasoning ability, were selected for low (L = 3 to 9 ) and high (H = 27 to 41) anxiety on the basis of Taylor MAS scores. All SO Ss received 320 trials on the Air Force Discrimination Reaction Timer wirh nonspecific instructions designed to produce a high degree of task complexity. The results were as follows: ( 1 ) Group HF was slightly inferior in reaction speed ( R . ) to Group LF initially, superior later; ( 2 ) Group HM remained markedly inferior to Group LM throughout; ( 3 ) men were generally faster than women; (4) women were significantly more anxious pre-experimentally than men; ( 5 ) the main effects of Practice, Sex, and their interaction were significant, as predicted, but Anxiety was a clear decremental factor only among males; ( 6 ) mean acquisition curves for 4 augmented groups of 50 Ss each were exponential and also revealed a marginal Practice X Sex X Anxiety interaction.The equations fitted the R, data wirh an average error of less than 196, which is in excellent agreement wirh the Hull-Spence theory. Implications for prior research by Grice, Noble, Spence, and Taylor were discussed.A considerable amount of research has been done on human performance as a function of variations in motivation employing extensions of Hull's (1943) general behavior theory. Useful summaries of the literature may be found in the writings of Brown (1961), Farber (1954), Spence (1956, 1958, and Tay lor ( 1956). Investigations in this area have dealt with the role of nonspecific drive factors in learning situations where level of motivation was varied both experimentally and psychometrically.As applied to latency measures, the core postulates of the Hull-Spence theory assert chat for single-response learning casks: 'This paper is based upon a master's thesis performed by J. for checking the starisrical analyses.

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“…Anxiety-neuroticism tests were used for the same purpose. Wenar (1954) reports that anxious Ss reacted faster than non-anxious Ss to weak but not to strong stimuli; these results support Spence's chronic theory of anxiety (Spence, 1956). Castaneda (1956), however, found that reaction speed increases with stimulus intensity much more in anxious than in non-anxious Ss; this is a finding consistent with Spence's reactive theory of anxiety (Spence, 1956).…”

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confidence: 54%

Some correlates of inhibition-facilitation effect on reaction-time due to unexpected increase in stimulus intensity

Purohit¹

1966

Psychon Sci

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Ss who showed an inhibitory effect in reacting to an auditory stimulus, the intensitv of which was increased unexpectedly, were compared with Ss who showed a facilitatory effect in reacting to a similar stimulus. No difference was noticed between the two groups in introversion, anxietyneuroticism and autonomic lability measures. There was a significant negative correlation between latency of reaction to a weak stimulus and inhibition-facilitation effect. This result is discussed in terms of the curvilinear performance theory of activation and an alternative explanation is offered. Notes 1. This experiment was conducted in the University of Western Australia. 2. Personal communication.

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Reaction time as a function of manifest anxiety and stimulus intensity.

Cited by 41 publications

References 12 publications

Physiological and psychological measures in anxious patients

Physiological and psychological measures in anxious patients

Discrimination Reaction Performance as a Function of Anxiety and Sex Parameters

Some correlates of inhibition-facilitation effect on reaction-time due to unexpected increase in stimulus intensity

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