Auditory Discrimination and the Eyeblink

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Abstract
This experiment evaluated the association between blinking and cognitive activities. Subjects received 200 and 400 ms tones (1 KHz) at fixed intervals in a duration discrimination paradigm. One group (“Task”) was instructed to respond to the stimuli on the basis of duration and another (“No‐Task”) was instructed to ignore the stimuli. Blink activity (latency, rate, duration) and performance (RT, hit and false alarm rates) measures were evaluated.A first analysis (Task subjects only) indicated that stimulus duration had significant effects on RT and blink latency; both were generally longer following the 400‐ms than the 200‐ms stimuli. In a second analysis, involving Task and No‐Task subjects, blink latencies were shorter in the Task group. Blink and eyelid closure durations increased over the task period in both analyses. These effects suggest that blinks occur when attentional processes wane.

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