SKIN POTENTIAL, HEART RATE, AND THE SPAN OF IMMEDIATE MEMORY

ABSTRACT Relations between orienting response and span of immediate memory were studied by measuring skin potential responses (SPR) and heart rate (HR). Four conditions were studied by presenting letters in a tachistoscope and a 1000 cycle, 100 db tone simultaneous on some but not all trials. The co...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychophysiology 1968-09, Vol.5 (2), p.166-177
Main Authors: Thetford, Paul E., Klemme, Mary E., Spohn, Herbert E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Analysis of Variance
Female
Galvanic Skin Response
Heart Rate
Humans
Information Theory
Memory span
Memory, Short-Term
SPR
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Summary:ABSTRACT Relations between orienting response and span of immediate memory were studied by measuring skin potential responses (SPR) and heart rate (HR). Four conditions were studied by presenting letters in a tachistoscope and a 1000 cycle, 100 db tone simultaneous on some but not all trials. The conditions (15 Ss in each) were: tone and letters for 10 trials, then letters alone for 10 trials; tone and letters for 20 trials; only letters for 10 trials, followed by letters and tone for 10 trials; and only letters for 20 trials. The results showed: (1) positive SPR habituated and negative did not, (2) tone produced more SP activity, (3) HR showed a shift from acceleration to deceleration over 20 trials, but tone had no influence, (4) tone had no direct influence on span scores, (5) Ss showed improvement in number ol letters reported correctly. There was a significant correlation between span and negative SPR when tone was sounded (r =. 36).
ISSN:0048-5772
1469-8986
DOI:10.1111/j.1469-8986.1968.tb02813.x