Conditioning of attention as a source of autistic effects in perception.

An experiment and replication are presented to demonstrate the production of autistic effects in a situation creating habitual modes of responding to a problem-solving task. The task was to locate a simple figure within a complex colored figure much like the Gottschaldt Test. The simple figure could be located in 1 of 2 different colored areas within the complex figure. During an intervening training period certain colors were rewarded and other colors punished. The Gottschaldt-like figures were then presented again, and changes in responses were observed. In both experiments Ss showed a significant change toward the rewarded colors, which was explained in terms of subliminal anticipatory responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)