SENSORY AND PREPARATORY FACTORS IN RESPONSE LATENCY

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Abstract
Thrane, V. C. Sensory and preparatory factors in response latency. V. Stimulus blanks as regulator of preparatory set. Scand. J. Psychol., 1962, 3, 1–15.—When otherwise nearly replicating the preceding experiment, but excluding the final reaction signal in 14 per cent of the trials under all conditions, response latency was much less affected, if at all, by differential warning of stimulus strength. It is concluded that a constant proportion of stimulus blanks serves largely to equalize perceptual uncertainty on the part of the respondent as to presence of a stimulus, in spite of variations in the sensory adequacy of the expected stimulus, and hence may be used when necessary as an antecedent variable for generating more comparable preparatory sets in studies concerned with the sensory effects of stimulus variables.