SENSORY AND PREPARATORY FACTORS IN RESPONSE LATENCY

T hrane , V. C. Sensory and preparatory factors in response latency. IV. General and differential warning of full-scale auditory intensities. Scand. J Psychol ., 1961, 2, 211–224.—Twenty-one loudness variants ranging from hardly audible to no db re standard threshold were randomly presented after either (1) a constant or (2) a varied warning signal denoting one range below and two above an assumed transition point for the bi-functional relationship between response latency and stimulus intensity. Under (1) greater improvement with practice at one end of the scale was acccompanied by smaller gains at the other end. Under (2) practice had favorable but preknowledge unfavorable effects at the weakest intensities. Differential warning facilitated speed of response only for medium and strong stimuli and most at the high end of the scale.