Graduate Theses

Date of Award

8-1987

Document Type

Research Project Report

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Behavioral Science

Supervisory Committee Chair

J. Simpson, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Don Miller, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

James M. Olson, Ph.D.

Abstract

The study was designed to investigate the hypothesis that various environmental stimuli would elicit specific individual responses, as reflected in autonomic patterns. It then became the aim of the study to see whether the stimuli which controlled the physiological pattern would also control the verbal response. Three female and two male students volunteered for the single-subject experiment, where they were exposed to a 15-slide sequence of environment stimuli. Results indicated that when allowed to verbally respond without rating restrictions, responses varied greatly, limiting the possibilities of comparison. In kind, the physiological responses exhibited great variability. Results also supported the position that general arousal and anticipation response were not in operation. The data were partially supportive of the hypothesis, since autonomic patterns were observable for three of the subjects. It is suggested that further experimentation with expanded stimuli and polygraph components might provide additional data that would lend even greater support to the original hypothesis.

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