Abstract
When an irrelevant ‘accessory’ stimulus is presented at about the same time as the imperative signal in a choice reaction time-task, the latency of the voluntary response is markedly reduced1. The most prominent cognitive theories agree that this effect is attributable to a brief surge in arousal (‘automatic alerting’), but they disagree over whether the facilitation is localized to a late, low-level motoric process2 or to an earlier stage, the process of orienting to and then perceptually categorizing the reaction stimulus3,4. To test these alternative hypotheses, we used the onset of the lateralized readiness potential (a movement-related brain potential) as a temporal landmark to partition mean reaction time into two time segments. The first segment included the time required to perceive the visual stimulus and decide which hand to react with; the second included only motoric processes. Presentation of an irrelevant acoustic stimulus shortened the first interval but had no effect on the second. We therefore rejected the motoric hypothesis.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bernstein, I. H., Rose, R. & Ashe, V. Preparatory state effects in intersensory facilitation. Psychonomic Sci. 19, 113–114 (1970).
Sanders, A. F. in Tutorials in Motor Behavior (eds Stelmach, G. E. & Requin, J.) 331–354 (North Holland, Amsterdam, (1980)).
Posner, M. I. Chronometric Explorations of Mind, Ch. 5 (Erlbaum, Hillsdale, (1978)).
Fernandez-Duque, D. & Posner, M. I. Relating the mechanisms of orienting and alerting. Neuropsychologia 35, 477–486 (1997).
Sternberg, S. in Attention and Performance II (ed. Koster, W. G.) 276–315 (North Holland, Amsterdam, (1969)).
Young, R. A., Cegavske, C. F. & Thompson, R. F. Tone-induced changes in the excitability of abducens motoneurons and of the reflex path of nictitating membrane response in rabbit. J. Comp. Physiol. Psychol. 90, 424–434 (1976).
Stafford, I. L. & Jacobs, B. L. Noradrenergic modulation of the masseteric reflex in behaving cats. II. Physiologic studies. J. Neurosci. 10, 99–107 (1990).
Low, K. A., Larson, S. L., Burke, J. & Hackley, S. A. Alerting effects on choice reaction time and the photic eyeblink reflex. Electroenceph. Clin. Neurophys. 98, 385–393 (1996).
Gratton, G., Coles, M. G. H., Sirevaag, E., Eriksen, C. W. & Donchin, E. Pre- and post-stimulus activation of response channels: a psychophysiological analysis. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perf. 14, 331–344 (1988).
Miller, J. O., Patterson, T. & Ulrich, R. Ajackknife-based method for measuring LRP onset latency differences. Psychophysiology (in the press).
Miller, J. & Hackley, S. A. Electrophysiological evidence for temporal overlap among contingent mental processes. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 121, 195–209 (1992).
Sanders, A. F. Towards a model of stress and human performance. Acta Psychol. 53, 61–97 (1983).
Eriksen, C. W. Asource of error in attempts to distinguish coactivation from separate activation in the perception of redundant targets. Percept. Psychophys. 44, 191–193 (1988).
Miller, J. & Lopes, A. Bias produced by fast guessing in distribution-based tests of race models. Percept. Psychophys. 50, 584–590 (1991).
Stein, B. E., London, N., Wilkinson, L. K. & Price, D. D. Enhancement of perceived visual intensity by auditory stimuli: a psychophysical analysis. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 8, 497–506 (1996).
Valle-Inclán, F. & Hackley, S. A. Accessory stimulus and response selection effects on the lateralized readiness potential (LRP). Psychophysiology 34, s92 (1997)).
Acknowledgements
We thank W. Gehring for the software used for the correction of ocular artefacts and J. Miller, N. Cowan and G. Gratton for discussions. This research was supported by grants from the NIH, the Spanish Ministry of Education and Culture, and the regional government of Galicia.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hackley, S., Valle-Inclán, F. Automatic alerting does not speed late motoric processes in a reaction-time task. Nature 391, 786–788 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/35849
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35849
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.