Cardiovascular and skin conductance correlates of a fixed-foreperiod reaction time task in retarded and nonretarded youth.

Changes in heart rate (HR), digital and cephalic pulse amplitude, and skin conductance were studied during a fixed-foreperiod reaction time (RT) task. Mentally retarded adolescents with a mean mental age of 9 yrs, 10 mos were compared with two nonretarded groups matched on mental age (MA) and chronological age (CA), respectively. AH subjects received 20 RT trials with distractors (music) during the 4-sec preparatory interval (PI) and 20 trials without music in a counterbalanced design. The warning signal was a 1 sec light presentation and the reaction signal was an 82 dB tone. Retarded subjects had longer and more variable RTs than the controls. Retarded subjects had smaller HR accelerations and decelerations during the PI than the CA group but not less than the MA group. Further, the retarded group had a marginally lower tonic skin conductance level, smaller skin conductance responses, and smaller constrictions in cephalic pulse amplitude than the CA controls. The results are discussed in terms of attentional and arousal deficits in retarded persons. Some comments are focused on the developmental findings (MA vs CA groups) and on the discrepancies among the skin conductance and cardiovascular measures.

[1]  A. Luria,et al.  AN OBJECTIVE INVESTIGATION OF THE DYNAMICS OF SEMANTIC SYSTEMS , 1959 .

[2]  J. Lacey.  Psychophysiological approaches to the evaluation of psychotherapeutic process and outcome. , 1959 .

[3]  F. Royer.  Cutaneous vasomotor components of the orienting reflex. , 1965, Behaviour research and therapy.

[4]  L. Sroufe.  Age Changes in Cardiac Deceleration within a Fixed Foreperiod Reaction-Time Task: An Index of Attention. , 1971 .

[5]  H. Johnson,et al.  Phasic heart rate changes in reaction time and time estimation. , 1969, Psychophysiology.

[6]  W G Chase,et al.  Components of HR response in anticipation of reaction time and exercise tasks. , 1968, Journal of experimental psychology.

[7]  A. C. Bower.  Autonomic correlates of anticipation and feedback in retarded adolescents. , 2008, Journal of mental deficiency research.

[8]  P. Lang,et al.  Cortical slow-wave and cardiac rate responses in stimulus orientation and reaction time conditions. , 1969, Journal of experimental psychology.

[9]  O. Parsons,et al.  Physiological concomitants of reaction time performance in normal and brain-damaged subjects. , 1972, Psychophysiology.

[10]  R. Lazarus,et al.  Some parameters of heart rate change: perceptual versus motor task requirements, noxiousness, and uncertainty. , 1970, Psychophysiology.

[11]  R. A. Webb,et al.  The cardiac-somatic relationship: some reformulations. , 1970, Psychophysiology.

[12]  C. E. Joubert,et al.  Effects of varying the length and frequency of response-stimulus interval on the reaction times of normal and mentally deficient subjects. , 1970, Journal of comparative and physiological psychology.

[13]  G. Kellas,et al.  Reaction Time and Mental Retardation , 1968 .

[14]  P. Obrist,et al.  Cardiac deceleration and reaction time: an evaluation of two hypotheses. , 1970, Psychophysiology.

[15]  A. Baumeister,et al.  Behavioral variability among retardates, children, and college students. , 1973, The Journal of psychology.

[16]  Son Bc,et al.  Anticipatory Heart Rate Deceleration and Reaction Time in Children with and without Referral for Learning Disability. , 1973 .

[17]  G. Schwartz,et al.  Cardiac Activity Preparatory to Overt and Covert Behavior , 1971, Science.

[18]  M. Cowles,et al.  The latency of the skin resistance response and reaction time. , 1973, Psychophysiology.

[19]  J P Das,et al.  Orientating responses of mentally retarded and normal subjects to word-signals. , 1971, British journal of psychology.

[20]  H. Kotses,et al.  Cephalic vasomotor and heart rate measures of orienting and defensive reflexes. , 1969, Psychophysiology.

[21]  J. Furedy.  Human orienting reaction as a function of electrodermal versus plethysmographic response modes and single versus alternating stimulus series. , 1968, Journal of experimental psychology.

[22]  A. Krupski.  Heart rate changes during a fixed reaction time task in normal and retarded adult males. , 1975, Psychophysiology.

[23]  R. Elliott.  Physiological activity and performance in children and adults: a two-year follow-up. , 1966, Journal of experimental child psychology.