ORIENTATING RESPONSES OF MENTALLY RETARDED AND NORMAL SUBJECTS TO WORD-SIGNALS

GSRs of normal and retarded children of comparable CA were recorded during a 30‐min. vigilance task, which consisted of two signal and four non‐signal words. One of the signal words served as a warning signal, preceding the other, which was an imperative signal for buttton‐pressing. The warning signal evoked a greater number of GSRs in the normals than the imperative one; this was reversed for the retardates. GSR adaptation to signal words occurred at the same rate and level for both groups; but in adaptation to the non‐signal words the retardates maintained a higher level of GSR frequencies than the normals. These results were not congruent with an attentional deficit model of retardation.