The Attraction of Color for Active Attention-Problem Children

The optimal stimulation theory proposes that attention disordered hyperactive children are less tolerant than their normal peers of rote, minimally stimulating tasks and thus should more readily attend to color added to such tasks. Due to this attentional selectivity, color added to relevant features should produce improved performance, especially for this group. To test this hypothesis, 17 children, rated high in attention and activity problems, were matched on the basis of age and performance to 17 controls. Matched pairs were randomly assigned to stimulation order (colored stimuli first and black stimuli second session or the reverse order) and to level of emphasis-placement (emphasis added to relevant letter parts or added to randomly selected letter stimuli) counterbalanced for stimulation order. Findings in support of the theory were that attention-problem children performed better with color emphasis placed on relevant detail than when it was assigned to randomly selected letters. Differential responding was significant for experimental but not control children.

Hyperactive and Comparison Children's Response to Detailed VS. Global Cues in Communication Tasks

According to the optimal stimulation theory, hyperactive children suffer from insufficient arousal, expecially in contexts that provide minimal stimulation. In the present study hyperactive children were predicted to perform worse than controls on tasks requiring attention to detailed information because utilization of detailed cues requires narrowing and sustaining attentional focus (optimally produced by states of high arousal). Hyperactive and comparison children were presented with a series of receptive communication tasks requiring attention to (a) detailed cues alone, and (b) global cues followed by detailed cues or detailed cues followed by global cues, under conditions in which subjects were permitted to ask for clarifying cues or information. Findings demonstrated that hyperactive boys performed worse than controls in tasks which provided detailed cues alone. During tasks in which additional cues available were detailed, experimental subjects responded more impulsively than controls. Problems with detailed cues were not attributable to overall differences between groups in motivation, ability to request information, information processing speed, or nonspecific impulsivity. These findings suggest that hyperactive children may more readily process global than detailed information in tasks that are analogous to classroom listening tasks.

Fascination with Death as a Function of Need for Novel Stimulation

Optimal stimulation theory suggests that when an organism's level of stimulus input falls below its optimal range, the organism is then motivated to return its neurological excitation to its optimal range. If contemporary American society produces individuals who maintain a sense of boredom, powerlessness, and alienation, then they may possibly derive stimulation and consequently importance from highly arousing novel experiences such as violence and death. To test this hypothesis, boredom, alienation and stimulus-seeking were assumed to be indicative of decreased response to principle stimulation sources. Students were grouped into high/low variable groups. An author developed scale measured fascination with death. An analysis of variance revealed that persons both highly bored and highly alienated were indeed more interested in death-related events.

Arousal and Preferences for Complexity in Infants

To determine the effects of arousal on preference for complexity 9 infants (16 to 18 mo.) were exposed to different levels of complexity under low and high hunger drive. Low-hunger Ss showed longer fixation time than high-hunger Ss toward all stimuli and showed relatively greater preference for complexity than high-hunger Ss. The results were interpreted in terms of optimal-stimulation theory and information-processing theory.

Dissatisfaction and Sensation-Seeking as Related to Frequency of Daydreaming Reported by Male Subjects

The hypotheses derived from Freud's theory that daydreaming is related to tension reduction, and Leuba's “optimal stimulation” theory that daydreaming is related to sensation seeking, were supported for male Ss. Although the obtained individual correlation coefficients were of low magnitude, together the pattern allowed the conclusion that general daydreaming is related to both tension reduction as well as sensation seeking.