Abstract
The present study examined the effects of stimulus coding upon the orienting skin conductance response (SCR). Two kinds of tones, a 525Hz tone (“C” on the musical scale.) and a 658Hz tone (“E”) with the intensity of 70dB (c) were selected. A pair of the same tones (525Hz) was presented (S-Condition) in the first habituation session, whereas in the following session the pair of tones was changed to a 525Hz tone and a 658Hz tone (D-Condition). The duration of each tone was 1 s with an interval of 100 ms between the two tones. Each session was run with ITIs of 30 s in average until habituation was attained. Thirty-two female college volunteers were assigned to two groups, the Tone Group (N=14) and the Musical Scale Group (N=18) according to whether they perceived the tones as simple physical tones or tones on the musical scale. The data indicated that in the first session with S-Condition there were no differences in any measures of response between the two groups, but in the second session with D-Condition the Musical Scale Group showed a significantly slower rate of habituation and a higher degree of responsivity than the Tone Group. The results were discussed in terms of cognitive set.
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