Abstract

The present research describes an experiment designed to examine the relationship between absorption and frontalis EMG level. Briefly, absorption is defined as the capacity for absorbed, self-altering attention involving a full commitment of available perceptual, motoric imaginative and ideational resources to a unified representation of the attentional objects. There have been two theoretical interpretations about Absorption X Treatment interaction, that is, about the way in which low- and high-absorption subjects attained their best relaxation levels. One is that the lows by attending to external stimuli, the highs by turning to inner experiences. The other is that low absorption persons attain a higher level of relaxation under conditions calling for an instrumental set, and high-absorption subjects relax better if an experiential set is forstered. In this experiment, high- and low-absorption subjects were assigned to either a experiential condition which was the same as traditional no-feedback condition (instruction only and no external attentional demand) or instrumental condition in which subjects were not provided with an external focus but were asked to perform a specific task. The pattern of results was consistent with the latter interpretation. For low absorption subjects, performance in instrumental condition was appreciably greater than in the experiential condition, inspite of no external attentional demanding. It was concluded that it is not the internal versus external focus per se that plays a decisive role but the subject's experiential versus instrumental set in this interaction.