An Alertness Decrement Hypothesis of Response Inhibition to Repeatedly Presented Stimuli

Both inhibitory and facilitative effects of repeated stimulus presentation have been observed. Two-factor theory attributes both kinds of effects to changes in specific components of attention. The theory claims that repeated exposure (a) decreases the alerting capacity of a stimulus and (b) facilit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American journal of psychology 1984-01, Vol.97 (3), p.391-398
Main Authors: Cecil, L. Steven, Kraut, Alan G., Smothergill, Daniel W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activity levels. Psychomotricity
Adult
Adults
Alertness
Attention
Biological and medical sciences
Children
Choice Behavior
Experimentation
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Habituation
Humans
Inhibition (Psychology)
Male
Mental stimulation
Novels
Physical Stimulation
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time
Time Factors
Vigilance. Attention. Sleep
Warning systems
Warnings
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Summary:Both inhibitory and facilitative effects of repeated stimulus presentation have been observed. Two-factor theory attributes both kinds of effects to changes in specific components of attention. The theory claims that repeated exposure (a) decreases the alerting capacity of a stimulus and (b) facilitates encoding. The purpose of the present research was to provide further evidence that alertness decrement underlies the inhibitory effects of stimulus repetition. Adults were exposed to 30 presentations of a colored circle prior to performing a choice-reaction time (RT) task on which the targets were the familiarized stimulus and a novel stimulus. A warning signal occurred at one of three intervals prior to target onset. It was predicted from the literature on the temporal characteristics of alertness that the relative speed of responding to the familiarized stimulus would vary as a function of the warning signal-target interval. As predicted, responses to the familiarized stimulus were (a) slower than to the novel stimulus at intervals of 0 and 2,500 ms, but (b) faster than to the novel stimulus at 450 ms. The convergence of these findings with the alertness literature suggests an alertness decrement interpretation of response decrements to repeatedly presented stimuli.
ISSN:0002-9556
1939-8298
DOI:10.2307/1422526