Differential effects of interstimulus interval on habituation and recall scores

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Habituation of the orienting reflex (OR) may be viewed as a simple or model form of learning. Previous research (Germana, 1968) has demonstrated that habituation of the OR may take the form of conventional stimulus-response learning and suggested the present comparison between habituation and a behavioral recall measure. Habituation to a 10-digit number was an inverse function of interstimulus interval (ISI), whereas recall of the same stimulus, tested after habituation, did not significantly vary across the range of ISIs employed. It was suggested that the effects of ISI on habituation were primarily determined by increased difficulty of encoding rate of stimulus presentation at increasingly longer ISIs and that behavioral recall does not reflect this temporal dimension of stimulus learning.