P. Jaskowski et R. Verleger, A CLOCK PARADIGM TO STUDY THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EXPECTANCY AND RESPONSE FORCE, Perceptual and motor skills, 77(1), 1993, pp. 163-174
It has recently been demonstrated that the force used by subjects to p
ress a response key depends on stimulation conditions such as stimulus
intensity, fore-period, etc. We performed an experiment in which resp
onse force and reaction time were measured as a function of expectancy
. In contrast to the paradigms used so far, we manipulated expectancy
without using warning stimuli by applying a so-called ''clock-paradigm
.'' It enabled us to avoid the possible arousing effect of the warning
stimulus. Both reaction time and response force depended on expectanc
y. The results suggest that response force was not affected by arousal
or activation but was affected by preparatory state at the moment of
making a response.