Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x5gtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-05T00:01:09.676Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Effect of Auditory Stimulus Intensity on the Reaction Time of Schizophrenics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

P. H. Venables  and
J. Tizard
P. H. Venables
Affiliation:
Medical Research Council Social Psychiatry Research Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London
J. Tizard
Affiliation:
Medical Research Council Social Psychiatry Research Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Two earlier studies (Venables and Tizard, 1956a, b) on the reaction time (RT) of schizophrenics have shown that as the intensity of a visual stimulus is increased beyond an optimum point, RT to the stimulus increases. This “paradoxical” increase in RT is not shown by normal subjects, whose RT decreases as the intensity of visual stimulus increases. It was also found that the paradoxical phenomenon with visual stimuli was only shown on an initial occasion of testing. When the experiment was repeated twenty-four hours later, although there was no alteration in the mean level of RT, the pattern of increase in RT with increasing intensity, previously found, was absent.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 104 , Issue 437 , October 1958 , pp. 1160 - 1164
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1958 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Chocholle, R., “Variation des temps de réaction auditifs en fonction de l'intensité à diverses fréquences”, Année Psychol., 1954, 41–42, 65–124.Google Scholar
Kendall, M. G., Rank Correlation Methods, 1948. London: Griffin.Google Scholar
King, H. E., Psychomotor Aspects of Mental Disease, 1954. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pieron, H., “De la loi de variation des temps de latence en fonction des intensités excitatrices par les sensations auditives”, C.R. Soc. Biol., 1919, 82, 1116–1118.Google Scholar
Stevens, S. S., and Davis, H., Hearing, its Psychology and Physiology, 1938. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Teichner, W. H., “Recent studies of simple reaction time”, Psychol. Bull., 1954, 51, 128–149.Google Scholar
Venables, P. H., and Tizard, J., “The effect of stimulus light intensity on the reaction time of schizophrenics”, Brit. J. Psychol., 1956a, 47, 144–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iidem , “Paradoxical effects in the reaction time of schizophrenics”, J. Abnorm. Soc. Psychol., 1956b, 53, 220–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.