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Affective modulation of tactile startle

L W Hawk¹, E W Cook

¹Department of Psychology, University of Alabama, Birmingham 35294-1170, USA. lhawk+@pitt.edu

Psychophysiology

|January 1, 1997

Summary

Emotional pictures influence startle responses to touch. This study found tactile startle responses were larger to unpleasant images but showed no significant side differences, indicating no laterality in affective startle modulation.

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Psychology
Human Sensory Perception

Background:

Affective stimuli are known to modulate startle responses, typically measured via acoustic probes.
The lateralization of this affective modulation, particularly for non-acoustic probes, remains less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate affective modulation of startle responses using unilateral tactile probes.
To determine if affective modulation of startle responses is lateralized to either the sensory input side or motor output side.

Main Methods:

Two studies involving right-handed undergraduates (n=48 each) were conducted.
Participants viewed pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures while receiving airpuffs to the left or right temple.
Eyeblink responses served as the startle measure; probe presentation varied between (Study 1) and within (Study 2) trial blocks.

Main Results:

Eyeblink responses to tactile probes were significantly larger during unpleasant picture viewing compared to pleasant.
Affective modulation of startle did not differ significantly between the left and right temple probe presentations (sensory laterality).
No reliable differences in affective modulation were found between the left and right sides of response (motor laterality).

Conclusions:

Affective modulation of startle responses is replicable with tactile probes, extending previous findings with acoustic probes.
The findings suggest that affective modulation of startle responses to tactile stimuli is not lateralized.
This indicates a lack of sensory or motor lateralization in the processing of emotional influence on startle reflexes.

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