Dr.Escovedo measures the effort participants are devoting to a task using the product of heart rate and blood pressure.Dr.Escoveda would likely find a ___ correlation coefficient if the participant were doing an effortful processing task and a ___ correlation coefficient on an automatic processing task.
A) positive; positive
B) near zero; near zero
C) positive; near zero
D) near zero; positive

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The product of heart rate and blood pressure is a measure of arousal or activation level, which is higher when participants are doing an effortful processing task than an automatic processing task. Therefore, a positive correlation coefficient would be expected for effortful tasks, indicating that higher levels of arousal are associated with higher levels of effort. On the other hand, for automatic processing tasks, the correlation coefficient would be near zero, indicating that arousal is not strongly related to performance.

DrEscovedo Measures the Effort Participants Are Devoting to a Task