Affiliation:
1. Medical College of Ohio
2. University of Toledo
3. University of Michigan
Abstract
The study investigated performance on the Affective Sensitivity Test as a function of the stimulus modality. Subjects were administered one of four variations of the test: (1) the standard sound film version, (2) the audio but not the visual portion of the film, (3) the visual but not the audio portion of the film, (4) the test booklet with neither the visual nor audio portion. Contrary to prediction, the standard administration (audio plus visual) resulted in significantly lower scores than did either the minimal information-booklet-only condition or the audio-only condition. Several explanations of these findings are discussed; data suggest the need for more research on the effect of different types of information on affective sensitivity.