In order to find the connection between emotion and motor control Coombes, Janelle, and Duley gave participants a positive or negative stimulus followed by the task of tracing a rectangle.  Their findings were significant and the results were; negative stimulus shown repeatedly resulted in decreased accuracy, and a short duration negative stimulus lead to a faster response. 

            This research sent my mind in a few directions; practical applications in sport, and where we can see this in our own lives.  As far as practical implications it reminded me of something Matt had talked about in class with the slower responses by runners in outside lanes to the starter’s gun shot.  I wonder if the fact that a gunshot is a loud, and in my opinion unpleasant stimulus causes runners to start faster and step less accurately, than they would if instead they heard a pleasant musical note to start a race.  According to the research this should be the case.

            Another thought that this research brought to my mind was how the quicker responses to negative stimuli might compare to adrenaline raising responses.  I wonder how our responses to stimuli might compare to our more natural responses to sudden fear.  Brook mentioned in her blog that she was curious about how respondents would have responded with kinesthetic or auditory stimuli.  I also wonder how quickly respondents would jump if suddenly startled instead of given the expected stimuli.  I know that wasn’t the purpose of the study but I would be interested to see how quickly we naturally respond to being startled compared to our conscious more controlled responses.