Perception speed and behavior: a theoretical note.

Abstract

In feedback control systems, delay of the feedback information can produce oscillations or other distortions of system output. Previously unrelated work by others, when viewed as aspects of a single functional process, point co the potential effect of temporal factors in sensory processes on aspects of behavior. The three areas of research to be related are as follows: 1. Human behavior is disrupted if conditions external to S produce a delay in sensory feedback. The experimental techniques involved electromechanical delay of visual, auditory or tactile feedback (Chase, Sumon, & Rapin, 1961). The disrupted behaviors grossly simulate stuttering or neuropachological disability. 2. Physiological mechanisms, related to the functioning of the reticular activating system, can vary the latency of afferent transmission. Thus, a mechanism for variable internal sensory delay exists (Magoun, 1958). 3. Psychophysical measurement shows that perception speeds can differ in differenc sensory modalities. These differences reflect stable individual difference and also vary with direction of attention (Angel1 & Pierce, 1892; Stone, 1926). The present authors hypothesize that physiological changes in latency of either afferent transmission or perceptual registration may produce changes in behavior similar to thac induced by externally delayed feedback. Psychophysical measures of relative perception speed reflect the changes in lacency and, thus, these measures of perception speed might be profitably employed in attempts to explain some of the normal individual differences in motor skills and aspects of parkinsonian disability. Normal behavior.-The speed of perception normally differs in differenc sensory modalities. These intermodal differences in perception speed vary among individuals. For individuals showing unusually long perceptual delays in given modalities, one would expect to find corresponding relative slowness or inefficiency of those behaviors which depend on the specific modalities for feedback control. For example, Ss with below average speed in auditory and kinesthetic perception should show slowness in speech; Ss slow in visual and kinesthetic perception should be poor in visual-motor coordination tasks, and Ss slow only in kinesthesis should be slow specifically in making simple arm movements. These deductions, never tested, follow directly from the facts concerning externally delayed feedback and from the data concerning normal individual differences in perception speed.