Electrodermal responses to attended and nonattended significant stimuli during dichotic listening

Some investigators have found that words previously associated with shock elicit electrodermal responses (EDRs) when presented in the nonattended channel of a dichotic listening task. The present experiment tested for this phenomenon while closely monitoring for shifts in attention to the nonattended channel. College student volunteers verbally shadowed a series of unrelated words presented to the attended channel while words made significant by previous association with shock (and semantically related words) were occasionally presented to the nonattended channel. Three principal findings were obtained. Fist, when EDRs were averaged across all trials and across all subjects, it was found that EDRs were elicited by the significant words presented in the nonattended channel. Second, for the subgroup of subjects that had the significant words presented to the right ear (activating the left cerebral hemisphere), it was found that EDRs were elicited by the significant words presented to the left ear (activating the right cerebral hemisphere), it was found that EDRs were elicited by the significant word seven on trials on which there were no apparent shifts in attention. The results of this study indicate the importance of closely controlling and monitoring for shifts in attention and suggest the potential importance of cerebral laterality in mediating EDRs to stimuli presented in a nonatttended channel.