When Thoughts Compete: Habituation in a Two-Object Reflexive Imagery Task
Lekha Haritsa
Department of Psychology
Faculty Supervisor: Ezequiel Morsella
Involuntary subvocalizations are automatically triggered by visual stimuli and can occur even when individuals attempt to suppress them. The present study investigates how habituation operates when multiple stimuli are presented simultaneously within the Reflexive Imagery Task (RIT). Prior research has demonstrated that repeated presentations of a single object lead to decreased rates of involuntary subvocalizations across instantiations. However, it remains unclear how this process unfolds when two objects are presented simultaneously in an instantiation within the same trial. Participants are presented with pairs of objects and are instructed to avoid thinking of their names. Each pair is repeated across ten consecutive instantiations, and participants report which object they subvocalize first, if any. We examine whether involuntary subvocalizations decrease across repetitions and how responses are distributed between the two objects. We predict that participants will exhibit systematic patterns of responding, including potential habituation to one or both objects or alternating patterns of subvocalization across instantiations. We discuss the implications of these outcomes for understanding the mechanisms underlying habituation and sensitization, and for treatments of psychopathologies involving debilitating, intrusive thoughts.