"Orienting Reflexes, also called orienting reflex, is the innate reflex that causes an organism to respond immediately to a change in its environment. The phenomenon was first described by Russian physiologist Ivan Sechenov in his 1863 book Reflexes of the Brain, and the term was coined by Ivan Pavlov, who also referred to it as the "What is it?" reflex. The orienting response is a reaction to novelty. Such reflexes include: Pupil dilation, Galvanic skin response, EEG response to novel stimuli" - Psychology Wiki
"Alpha blocking in response to sensory stimuli starts about 4 seconds after the onset of stimulation, lasts 1-2 seconds of the stimuli are brief, and shows habituation is simple stimuli are repeated. Alpha blocking generally occurs in response to the stimulus variables at elicit the orienting response: novelty, complexity, unexpectedness (Berlyne 1960). In fact, alpha blocking is a regular component of the orienting response." - The Emotions (April 1987)
"The Electroencephalogram (EEG) of humans and animals at rest shows, at least in it's parietal and occipedal derivations, the alpha rhythm: relatively regular voltage fluctuations with frequencies between 8 and 13 cycles per second. Under the influence of sensory stimuli (light flashes, buzzers, pinpricks, electric shocks) and upon mental activity requiring attention, alpha blocking occurs. The EEG then shows desynchronization: low voltage, fast and irregular activity, sometimes referred to as beta rhythm. Alpha blocking in response to sensory stimuli starts about 4 seconds after the onset of stimulation, lasts 1-2 seconds if the stimuli are brief, and shows habituation if simple stimuli is repeated. Alpha blocking generally occurs in response to the stimulus variables that elicit the orienting response: novelty, complexity, unexpectedness (Berlyne 1960). In fact, alpha blocking is a regular component of the orienting response." - the textbook "Attention and Brain Function" By Risto Näätänen (page 152)
"A prototype for orienting is the response of a dog or a cat to a sudden sound. The animal rapidly adjusts its sense organs, by pricking its ears and turning its eyes, head and/or body, so it can optimally pick up information about the event. Responses such as flicking the eye in the direction of a sound or peripheral movement, as well as accompanying postural adjustments, skin conductance changes, pupil dilation, decrease in heart rate, a pause in breathing, and constriction of the peripheral blood vessels, occur automatically and are collectively referred to as the orienting reflex. The most effective orienting stimuli are loud sounds, suddenly-appearing bright lights, changes in contours, or movements in the peripheral visual field that are not regular, predictable occurrences. It is as though we had an internal 'model' of the immediate world of stimuli around us. When we notice a departure of stimulus input from that model, we reflexively orient to that stimulus in order to update that model as quickly as possible (Sokolov, 1975). If the same stimulus occurs repeatedly it becomes an expected part of our model of the world, and our orienting reflex toward it becomes weaker, even if the stimulus is quite strong. With a change in the nature of the stimulus, however, the reflex recovers to full strength." - Scholarpedia
"Neuroscientists (nor-o-SY-in-tists), or scientists who study the brain and nervous system, believe that attention is largely a function of the brain's reticular activating (re-TIK-yoo-lur AK-ti-vay-ting) system, or RAS... A Russian scientist named Ivan Petrovich Pavlov observed some of the physical signs of attention in dogs and other animals, which came to be known as the orienting response." - humanillnesses.com
"An important function of the brain's orienting response is to enable the evaluation of novel, environmental events in order to prepare for potential behavioral action. Here, we assessed the event-related hemodynamic (erfMRI) correlates of this phenomenon using unexpected (i.e., novel) environmental sounds presented within the context of an auditory novelty oddball paradigm. In ERP investigations of the novelty oddball, repetition of the identical novel sound leads to habituation of the novelty P3, an ERP sign of the orienting response." - Brain and Behavior (April 2009)
The Orienting Response (Involuntary Attention): No Gamma Brainwaves
"Gamma-band response was linked to voluntary shifts of attention, but not to the involuntary capture of attention. The presence of increased gamma responses for the voluntary allocation of attention, and its absence in cases of involuntary capture suggests that the neural mechanisms governing these two types of attention are different." - The Journal of Neuroscience (Oct 2007) and The Journal of Neuroscience (Oct 2007) - pdf
"Specifically, we investigated changes in induced alpha, beta, and gamma activity in 6-month-old infants during repeated presentations of either a face or an object, and examined whether these changes predicted behavioral responses to novelty at test. We found that induced gamma activity over occipital scalp regions decreased with stimulus repetition in the face condition but not in the toy condition, and that greater decreases in the gamma band were associated with enhanced orienting to a novel face at test." - MIT Press Journals (Dec 2008)
Orienting Response / Reflex / OR / Involuntary Attention
"Formal Features" are the camera cuts, pans, zooms etc. used very frequently in TV and movies. Because these "formal features" are so novel, and different from normal everyday reality, they trigger the brain's "orienting response" - The Future of Children, Princeton - Brookings (Spring 2008)
"So why does your son watch the screen so carefully? Because it keeps changing. You’re seeing evidence of what’s called the orienting reflex, which causes people to turn toward any change in their environments—whether it’s an ever-changing TV screen, a loud noise, or someone running by." - Ask the Mediatrician (Sept 2009)
"Orienting Reflexes, also called orienting reflex, is the innate reflex that causes an organism to respond immediately to a change in its environment. The phenomenon was first described by Russian physiologist Ivan Sechenov in his 1863 book Reflexes of the Brain, and the term was coined by Ivan Pavlov, who also referred to it as the "What is it?" reflex. The orienting response is a reaction to novelty. Such reflexes include: Pupil dilation, Galvanic skin response, EEG response to novel stimuli" - Psychology Wiki
"The EEG studies similarly show less mental stimulation, as measured by alpha brain-wave production, during viewing than during reading."
"What is it about TV that has such a hold on us? In part, the attraction seems to spring from our biological "orienting response." First described by Ivan Pavlov in 1927, the orienting response is our instinctive visual or auditory reaction to any sudden or novel stimulus. It is part of our evolutionary heritage, a built-in sensitivity to movement and potential predatory threats. Typical orienting reactions include dilation of the blood vessels to the brain, slowing of the heart, and constriction of blood vessels to major muscle groups. Alpha waves are blocked for a few seconds before returning to their baseline level, which is determined by the general level of mental arousal. The brain focuses its attention on gathering more information while the rest of the body quiets."
"In 1986 Byron Reeves of Stanford University, Esther Thorson of the University of Missouri and their colleagues began to study whether the simple formal features of television--cuts, edits, zooms, pans, sudden noises--activate the orienting response, thereby keeping attention on the screen. By watching how brain waves were affected by formal features, the researchers concluded that these stylistic tricks can indeed trigger involuntary responses and "derive their attentional value through the evolutionary significance of detecting movement.... It is the form, not the content, of television that is unique.""
Involuntary versus Voluntary Attention
"The stimulus acting as a distractor of voluntary attention disrupts the voluntary attention system with stimuli characterized by intensity and suddeness. The psychological study of involuntary attention was based on it's destructive effects on voluntary attention."
"The direct investigation of involuntary attention was initiated by I.P. Pavlov's (1927) discovery of the orienting reflex (OR). In the framework of the physiology of the higher nervous activity, OR research was regarded as a logical extension of physiological research strategies which view psychological phenomenon as complex brain functions."
"... The possibility of looking at this part of the iceburg of OR components was opened by the remarkable discovery of brain waves by H. Berger (1929). It was shown that the alpha-rhythm depression closely corresponds to the OR and involuntary attention." - the textbook "Attention and Brain Function" By Risto Näätänen (page xii)
"This study investigated the effects of advertising pacing (i.e. the number of visual cuts in an advertisement) on viewers' voluntary and involuntary attention to an advertisement, as well as its effects on the recall of claim-related and non-claim-related components of the advertisement." - Informaworld (March 2003)
The Orienting Response & Children's Televison
"It has been noted for some time that television can be mesmerizing for young children and that even children with attention deficit disorder, who can pay attention to little else for meaningful periods of time, can stay focused on television. One of the central ways that television succeeds in maintaining the attention of children is through the "orienting response." First described by Pavlof in 1927, the orienting response can be thought of as the "what's that" reflex. Simply put, it's our brains keen interest in something that is new or unexpected. One can readily imagine why this is (and more importantly was) critical to humans survival." - Pediatrics For Parents
"Children’s programmers use a technique called the “orienting reflex," known as OR, to capture and keep a child’s attention. OR works in this way: If we see or hear something the brain doesn’t recognize as the correct sequence or a typical life event — such as a dancing alphabet or quick zooms and pans, we focus on it until the brain recognizes that it doesn’t pose a threat. The problem with watching too many programs that rely on OR is that real life becomes slow and boring by comparison."
“We think that with continued exposure to high intensity, unrealistic action, you’re conditioning the mind to expect that level of input,” Christakis explains. When the child doesn’t get the fast-paced input that television provides, he or she becomes bored and inattentive." - MSNBC (Sept 2004)
"Conditioning attentional skills: examining the effects of the pace of television editing on children's attention"
"Methods: School children (aged 4–7 years) were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Each group was presented with either a fast- or slow-edit 3.5-min film of a narrator reading a children's story. Immediately following film presentation, both groups were presented with a continuous test of attention."
"Results: Performance varied according to experimental group and age. In particular, we found that children's orienting networks and error rates can be affected by a very short exposure to television."
"Conclusion: Just 3.5 min of watching television can have a differential effect on the viewer depending on the pacing of the film editing. These findings highlight the potential of experimentally manipulating television exposure in children and emphasize the need for more research in this previously under-explored topic." - Acta Pædiatrica (June 2009)
"When a very young child is riveted to the screen, parents may assume it is because the child is interested in the content. In fact, as Christakis points out, the real reason for such fixation could be a primitive reflex known as the "orienting response."" - Brill Baby
"An important explanation for why we spend so much time motionless in front of the screen is that television constantly triggers the "orienting response" in our brains. As I noted in the introduction, the purpose of the orienting response is to immediately establish in the present moment whether or not fear is appropriate by determining whether or not the sudden movement that has attracted attention is evidence of a legitimate threat..."
"Now, television commercials and many action sequences on television routinely activate that orienting reflex once per second. And since we in this country, on average, watch television more than four and a half hours per day, those circuits of the brain are constantly being activated."
"The constant and repetitive triggering of the orienting response induces a quasi-hypnotic state. It partially immobilizes viewers and creates an addiction to the constant stimulation of two areas of the brain: the amygdala and the hippocampus (part of the brain's memory and contextualizing system). It's almost as though we have a "receptor" for television in our brains."
More on the Orienting Response
"Reeves et al. (1985) have shown that adult television viewers’ attention, measured as the blocking of the alpha frequency in the EEG, another component of the orienting response, is greater immediately following on-screen cuts, scene changes, and movement, regardless of content." - Television and Political Advertising (October 1991)
"By studying the activity of the brain while viewing, Reeves and Thorson discovered that these features of TV programming did, in fact, result in the triggering of this orienting response. “It is the form, not the content, of television that is unique,” Reeves and Thorson said." - The Catholic Exchange (April 2002)
"This study outlines a psychophysiological model of the role of orienting responses (ORs) in learning from televised lectures. ORs are involuntary responses to environmental stimuli that are novel or that signal the occurrence of something meaningful in the environment. In the present study, ORs were indexed with phasic decelerative heart-rate patterns. The experiment demonstrates that insertion of videographics in talking-head lectures produces ORs in television viewers. It also demonstrates that if lectures contain familiar and therefore easier material for viewers to remember, the ORs enhance learning, but if the lectures contain unfamiliar and therefore more difficult material to remember, the ORs interfere with learning. These results extend the idea that attention to television exhibits limited attentional capacity and suggests that there is a trade-off between people's ability to attend to structural and informational aspects of the television stimulus." - Communication Research (June 1992)
"It also demonstrates that if lectures contain familiar and therefore easier material for viewers to remember, the ORs enhance learning, but if the lectures contain unfamiliar and therefore more difficult material to remember, the ORs interfere with learning. These results extend the idea that attention to television exhibits limited attentional capacity and suggests that there is a trade-off between people's ability to attend to structural and informational aspects of the television stimulus." - Communication Research (1992)
"Experiment 2 assessed attention during the first second after the cut. Related sequences produced longer reaction times immediately following the cut at 10 and 20 frames; unrelated sequences produced longer reaction times further from the cut, at 20 frames, and 1 second. This pattern of results is explained using a dual process model of attention to television." - Communication Research (1993)
"At unpredictable intervals, the beep is replaced by a different tone (boop). The unexpected tone, the "boop," is the oddball. Oddballs cause a large response a component of the ERP called the P300. The P300 is a response that occurs about 300 milliseconds after the onset of a stimulus, and this "oddball" effect has been conceptually replicated using more complex stimuli like attitudinal issues." - Psychology Today Blog (July 2009)
"There was no significant difference in the results for a static camera versus a moving camera, but viewers were significantly less accurate when they saw an abrupt cut in the movie. This decrease in accuracy was almost entirely found at the point in the movie immediately following the cut, suggesting quite strongly that the cut itself momentarily disoriented viewers." - Cognitive Daily (July 2009)
"Involuntary Attention and Physiological Arousal Evoked by Structural Features and Emotional Content in TV Commercials. Structural features of television elicit involuntary physiological attentional responses in viewers. Mild emotional content in televised messages intensifies these responses, possibly through mediation of emotion-elicited arousal, which was also demonstrated. Heart rate data were collected and analyzed using novel techniques to show both short-term attentional responses and longer term arousal in subjects viewing commercial messages." - Communication Research (June 1990)
The Orienting Response and P300 (P3a)
"The P3a has been associated with brain activity related to the engagement of attention (especially orienting and involuntary shifts to changes in the environment) and the processing of novelty." - Wikipedia
The Orienting Response in Infants
"Habituation of the Orienting Response to Stimuli of Different Functional Values in 4-Month-Old Infants." - ERIC (July 1996)
"Development and habituation of the heart rate orienting response to auditory and visual stimuli in the rat." - APA PsycNet (Feb 1981)
"The neural basis underlying the orienting response has been thoroughly studied in frontal-eyed mammals. However, in non-mammalian species, including fish, it remains almost unknown. Therefore, we studied the contribution of the optic tectum and the mesencephalic reticular formation to the performance of the orienting response in goldfish, using behavioural, physiological, and anatomical tracer techniques." - PubMed (Feb 2005)
"The P3a has been associated with brain activity related to the engagement of attention (especially orienting and involuntary shifts to changes in the environment) and the processing of novelty." - 
