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Auditory startle response in blind subjects.

E Bachar·T Peri·R Halamish·A Y Shalev
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Abstract

Blindness is often associated with hypervigilance and arousal. The auditory startle response has been suggested as a measure of arousal. This study evaluated the auditory startle response of 10 blind individuals and 10 sighted controls who were exposed to a series of 15 1000-Hz, 95-db, 0-rise-time pure-tone stimuli, administered to both ears. The subjects' heart-rate, skin-conductance, and orbicularis-oculi-electromyogram responses to the tones were measured. Blind subjects did not differ from controls in the magnitude and in the habituation-rate of their responses. Results were interpreted as showing that blind persons' capacity for discriminative learning and for regulation of arousal is unimpaired. Task-related anxiety of blind persons should be differentiated from stimulus-related anxiety.

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Acoustic StimulationAdultArousalAuditory PerceptionBlindnessFemaleHabituation, PsychophysiologicHumansLoudness PerceptionMaleReflex, StartleJournal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

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E Bachar, T Peri, R Halamish, A Y Shalev. 1993. Auditory startle response in blind subjects.. https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1993.76.3c.1251

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