The Orienting Reflex in Humans: An International Conference Sponsored by the Scientific Affairs Division of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [Hardcover]

Originally published in 1979, the worlds leading researchers contributed chapters describing their work on the orienting reflex in humans. The contributions, at the time current and comprehensive, in a sense that each facet of contemporary research was represented, address the orienting reflex, now recognized as a fundamental component of human learning and cognitive function. The authors contributing to this volume emphasize both theoretical and methodological issues, as well as present more empirical research. Here is a volume that spans all current work on the orienting reflex in humans, both basic and applied, from the laboratory as well as clinical data, and which would be of immense interest to psychologists, psychophysiologists, psychiatrists, physiologists, and all others interested in this fascinating topic.

Prologue.  Part 1: Physiological Mechanisms of the Orienting Reflex  1. The Orienting Reaction: Key to Brain Re-presentational Mechanisms  2. Habituation and the Orienting Reflex: The Dual-Process Theory Revisited  3. Orienting and Evoked Potentials  4. Event-Related Slow Potentials of the Brain as Expressions of Orienting Function  5. Maintenance and Habituation of the Phasic Orienting Response to Competing Stimuli in Selective Attention  6. Habituation of the Components of the AEP to Stimuli of Different Intensities  7. Interstimulus Interval Length and Habituation of the P300  Part 2: Cardiac and Motor Processes in Orienting  8. Distinguishing Among Orienting, Defense, and Startle Reflexes  9. Orienting Activity in Two-Stimulus Paradigms as Reflected in Heart Rate  10. Orienting and Defensive Cardiac Responses  11. Myocardial Performance and Stress: Implications for Basic and Clinical Research