CENTRAL CONTROL OF SENSORY TRANSMISSION AND ITS POSSIBLE RELATION TO REACTION TIME

It is shown that the amount of information reaching the cerebral cortex after the second of a pair equal intensity stimuli applied to the same peripheral locus and in the same sensory modality varies inversely with the stimulus interval between the stimuli. For a simple stimulus activated task the reaction time can be related to the information reaching the cerebral cortex by the equation: log M = k1 + k2 (RT-L). Where log M is the psychological magnitude of the stimulus k1 and k2 are constants, RT is the reaction time and L is the latency of the cerebral response evoked by the stimulus in the primary cortical receiving area. © 1969.