Neumann O, Koch R, Niepel M, Tappe T
Abteilung für Psychologie, Universität Bielefeld.
Z Exp Angew Psychol. 1992;39(4):621-45.
Dissociations between a motor response and the subject's verbal report have been reported from various experiments that investigated special experimental effects (e.g., metacontrast or induced motion). To examine whether similar dissociations can also be observed under standard experimental conditions, we compared reaction times (RT) and temporal order judgments (TOJ) to visual and auditory stimuli of three intensity levels. Data were collected from six subjects, each of which served for nine sessions. The results showed a strong, highly significant modality dissociation: While RTs to auditory stimuli were shorter than RTs to visual stimuli, the TOJ data indicated longer processing times for auditory than for visual stimuli. This pattern was found over the whole range of intensities investigated. Light intensity had similar effects on RT and TOJ, while there was a marginally significant tendency of tone intensity to affect RT more strongly than TOJ. It is concluded that modality dissociation is an example of "direct parameter specification", where the pathway from stimulus to response in the simple RT experiment is (at least partially) separate from the pathway that leads to a conscious, reportable representation. Two variants of this notion and alternatives to it are discussed.
在研究特殊实验效应（如元对比或诱导运动）的各种实验中，已经报道了运动反应与受试者言语报告之间的分离现象。为了检验在标准实验条件下是否也能观察到类似的分离现象，我们比较了对三种强度水平的视觉和听觉刺激的反应时间（RT）和时间顺序判断（TOJ）。数据收集自6名受试者，每名受试者进行9次实验。结果显示出强烈的、高度显著的模态分离：虽然对听觉刺激的反应时间比对视觉刺激的反应时间短，但时间顺序判断数据表明，听觉刺激的处理时间比视觉刺激的长。在整个研究的强度范围内都发现了这种模式。光强度对反应时间和时间顺序判断有类似的影响，而音调强度对反应时间的影响略强于对时间顺序判断的影响，这一趋势具有边际显著性。研究得出结论，模态分离是“直接参数指定”的一个例子，在简单反应时间实验中，从刺激到反应的路径（至少部分）与导致有意识的、可报告表征的路径是分开的。本文讨论了这一概念的两种变体及其替代方案。
