ABSTRACT
Although Sokolov’s orienting-response theory postulated brain events causing the orienting response, the overwhelming majority of the empirical OR research has used peripheral measures. These data, in general, have not provided more than a very indirect test for this theory on the cerebral OR initiation and control, leaving many of the most central issues without a satisfactory answer. For example, there has been a long-lasting debate,
known as the significance controversy in the literature (see Bernstein, 1979, 1981; Maltzman, 1979; O’Gorman, 1979; Siddle, 1979), on whether stimulus change per se is sufficient for OR elicitation, or whether this stimulus change must also be perceived as significant or potentially significant in some way by the organism for OR elicitation. Bernstein (1979), one of the leading significance theorists, argued that although an orienting response may follow a stimulus change, it is the experienced significance, rather than the change per se, a physical event, that elicits the orienting response. Hence, on the significance hypothesis, the cortical interpretative and evaluative processes are crucial; if they do not occur, then no orienting response is elicited. This of course means rejecting Sokolov’s neuronal-mismatch theory. An orienting response elicited by stimulus change per se was described as very disastrous to behavior and performance by significance theorists. “We would be continuously orienting to insignificant stimulus changes.” (Bernstein, 1969).
