SYNOPSIS The responses to training of an autonomic relaxation response (peripheral vasodilatation) were studied. Forty migraine sufferers and forty controls were assigned to one of four treatments: (1) binary and analog feedback, (2) yoked (false) feedback, (3) relaxation‐tape induction, and (4) neutral‐tape control. The integral change of digital and extracranial blood volume was measured during one session. Responses of migraine sufferers were markedly different from normal subjects. No incremental utility of biofeedback over a simple relaxation procedure in the production of peripheral vasodilatation was found. High positive correlations were found between digital and extracranial blood volume changes.

The effects on rats of predictable and unpredictable shock were measured under 2 conditions: unrestrained Ss were shocked intermittently for 12/24 hr. on a 6-hr. on, 6-hr. off schedule; restrained Ss were shocked intermittently for 12/24 hr. on a 6-hr. on, 6-hr. off schedule. All Ss were shocked via tail electrode; thus, for the first time, unrestrained rats were completely unable to avoid “unavoidable” shock. Under Condition I, Ss receiving unpredictable shock lost more weight than Ss receiving predictable shock. Under Condition II, more Ss in the unpredictable-shock group developed ulcers than Ss in the predictable-shock group. The findings of Weiss (1968, 1970) were partially confirmed and extended to unrestrained Ss.

This study was undertaken to extend the learned helplessness phenomenon to a clinical population and to test the competing hypotheses of Seligman and Lewinsohn. Ninety-six male hospitalized psychiatric and medical patients were divided into three levels of depression according to their scores on the Short Form of the Beck Depression Inventory. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: (a) One group was treated with an 80-dB tone, which could be terminated by making an active response; (b) a second group was treated with the tone with a passive escape contingency; (c) a third group was treated with an inescapable tone; and (d) a no-noise group served as a control. After treatment, subjects were tested on an anagram-solving task. Inescapable noise produced as much deficit in the low-depressed subjects as was present in the depressed no-noise control subjects. Passive escape subjects did as well as active escape subjects. Results replicate the learned helplessness phenomenon in a group of clinical depressives and support Seligman's model of depression.The learned helplessness phenomenon has been proposed as a model for clinical depression (Miller & Seligman,

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