Abstract
Four trained Ss participated in a task concerned with intersensory facilitation of reaction time (RT). Discriminative RT to a visual event was longer than discriminative RT to a combined auditory-visual event, even though the auditory event by itself was a catch signal. The magnitude of this difference was greater with a long (5.5 sec) as opposed to short (.5 sec) foreperiod delay. This finding supported the hypothesis that the auditory component of the combined event serves a preparatory state role by enhancing response readiness, a role that is manifest to the extent that S’s prior degree of preparation is nonoptimal.
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Supported in part by NIMH Grants 11173-01 and 12530-02, as well as by a grant from the Liberal Arts Organized Research Fund, University of Texas at Arlington. A portion of this study was read at the symposium on Attention and Performance, III, Driebergen, The Netherlands, August 1969.
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Bernstein, I.H., Rose, R. & Ashe, V. Preparatory state effects in intersensory facilitation. Psychon Sci 19, 113–114 (1970). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03337448
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03337448