LATERALIZED STARTLE PROBES IN THE STUDY OF EMOTION

Two experiments are reported in which affective modulation of the star tle reflex elicited by monaurally presented acoustic probes was furthe r examined. An earlier study in our laboratory obtained significant mo dulation by affect for probes presented to the left ear, but no signif icant effect for probes presented to the right ear. Experiment 1 repli cated the procedures used in that experiment and obtained the same pat tern of effects. Experiment 2 changed the presentation of monaural pro bes from a blocked to a mixed presentation and again obtained a simila r pattern. Modulatory differences in reflex magnitude between pleasant and unpleasant stimuli were consistently large and reliable for refle xes elicited by left ear probes but weak and unreliable for reflexes e licited by right ear probes.