Presented an information reduction task to undergraduates (N = 180) in 2 experiments. Ss were instructed to gate (i.e., ignore) 3, 2, 1, or 0 tone dimensions prior to response selection within the stimulus durations of .5, 1, or 4 sec. Dependent variables were the mean phasic change in skin resistance, mean response time, and amount and rate of information transmission associated with each of the 12 conditions. The mean phasic skin resistance change associated with each group was considered to be a function of the (a) presence or absence of the choice motor responses, (b) amount of motivation as measured by tonic skin resistance, (c) degree of skeletal response conflict, and (d) rate of information transmission in bits/sec. Rate of information transmitted accounted for more variance (95%) than any other variable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)