THE EFFECT OF EMOTIONAL AND ATTENTIONAL PROCESSES ON BLINK STARTLE MODULATION AND ON ELECTRODERMAL RESPONSES

Emotional accounts of startle modulation predict that startle is facil itated if elicited during aversive foreground stimuli. Attentional acc ounts hold that startle is enhanced if startle-eliciting stimulus and foreground stimulus are in the same modality. Visual and acoustic fore ground stimuli and acoustic startle probes were employed in aversive d ifferential conditioning and in a stimulus discrimination task. Differ ential conditioning was evident in electrodermal responses and blink l atency shortening in both modalities, but effects on magnitude facilit ation were found only for visual stimuli. In the discrimination task, skin conductance responses, blink latency shortening, and blink magnit ude facilitation were larger during to-be-attended stimuli regardless of stimulus modality. The present results support the notion that atte ntion and emotion can affect blink startle modulation during foregroun d stimuli.