Operant Conditioning of Autonomic Responses: One Perspective on the Curare Experiments

Roberts, Larry E.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4684-2571-0_7

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 77 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The response to such inputs is an increase in sudomotor activation that is highly synchronized across volar surfaces (Wang, 1964). However, localized augmentation of effector activity can be produced by relatively subtle movements of the fingers and limbs ipsilateral to the recording site (Gulp & Edelberg, 1966;Roberts, 1978). There is also evidence suggesting that preferential activation of the left or right hemispheres by verbal or spatial cognitive tasks, respectively, inhibits sudomotor arousal in the contralateral limb (Comper & Lacroix, 1981;Lacroix & Comper, 1979).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Awareness of the response after feedback training for changes in heart rate and sudomotor laterality.

Roberts¹,

Williams²,

Marlin³

et al. 1984

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

What is the relation between the ability to control visceral responding on a biofeedback task and the ability to report behaviors actually contributing to this performance? Subjects received biofeedback training for unidentified visceral responses and then gave written reports about what they had done to control the feedback displays. Independent judges were given these reports and, on the basis of knowledge about activities known to contribute to visceral activity, were asked to determine the visceral responses for which the subjects had been trained. The reports of subjects who succeeded at bidirectional control of heart rate (Experiment 1) or sudomotor laterality (Experiment 2) showed awareness of behaviors related to feedback as assessed by this procedure, whereas the reports of subjects who failed at bidirectional control did not. Subsequent experiments indicated that these results did not depend on a learning strategy that might have been specific to the initial studies. These findings call into question the view that people are unaware of what they have done to produce the response after training on biofeedback tasks. Earlier studies reporting lack of awareness in biofeedback are discussed in light of factors that affect the measurement of biofeedback learning and response awareness.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Awareness of the response after feedback training for changes in heart rate and sudomotor laterality.

Roberts¹,

Williams²,

Marlin³

et al. 1984

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Miller (1978) stated that "these experiments were confirmed by results in three other laboratories, but later the results of apparently similar experiments progressively declined until it became impossible to repeat them in spite of extensive efforts in the author's laboratory and elsewhere." The "loss" of this phenomenon perplexed the psychophysiological community and the researchers tried to find an explanation (for details see Roberts, 1978). Experimental procedures were carefully manipulated by controlling for movement and respiration.…”

Section: Heart Rate and Hrv: A Psychological Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This explains the inability to instrumentally condition heart rate in a curare preparation, while preserving the neural mechanism mediating classically conditioned responses that are mediated via muscarinic cholingeric receptors (e.g., heart rate decelerations and sudomotor activity). Roberts (1978) provides additional plausible explanations in a detailed review of the "fragility" of conditioning under curare.…”

Section: Heart Rate and Hrv: A Psychological Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

The polyvagal perspective

Porges

2007

Biological Psychology

2,734

158

3,260

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The polyvagal theory introduced a new perspective relating autonomic function to behavior, that included an appreciation of the autonomic nervous system as a "system," the identification of neural circuits involved in the regulation of autonomic state, and an interpretation of autonomic reactivity as adaptive within the context of the phylogeny of the vertebrate autonomic nervous system. The paper has two objectives: first, to provide an explicit statement of the theory; and second, to introduce the features of a polyvagal perspective. The polyvagal perspective emphasizes how an understanding of neurophysiological mechanisms and phylogenetic shifts in neural regulation leads to different questions, paradigms, explanations, and conclusions regarding autonomic function in biobehavioral processes than peripheral models. Foremost, the polyvagal perspective emphasizes the importance of phylogenetic changes in the neural structures regulating the autonomic nervous system and how these phylogenetic shifts provide insights into the adaptive function and the neural regulation of the two vagal systems.

show abstract

“…For example, he might intend to suggest that learning through exteroceptive feedback is merely a factor in cardiovascular organization, or that cardiovascular adjustments are learned through their ability to correct internal metabolic disturbances. The latter idea has been a driving force in research on visceral learning for more than a decade, although evidence for operant autonomic learning as a mechanism of homeostasis is problematic (Dworkin 1984;Roberts 1978).…”

Section: Department Of Psychology Mcmaster University Hamilton Ontmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These and other possible explanations need to be looked at because intrinsic mechanisms would be expected to oppose a diminished cardiac output in the combined condition when workload is held constant. Engel's interpretation implies that cardiospecific instrumental learning is powerful enough to counteract such mechanisms, but previous efforts to uncouple cardiovascular and somatic activities through biofeedback do not encourage optimism on this point (Brener 1983;Newlin & Levenson 1978;Roberts 1978).…”

Section: Department Of Psychology Mcmaster University Hamilton Ontmentioning

confidence: 99%

An essay on the circulation as behavior

Engel

1986

Behav Brain Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Most conceptual models of the organization of the cardiovascular system begin with the premise that the nervous system regulates the metabolic and nonmetabolic reflex adjustments of the circulation. These models assume that all the neurally mediated responses of the circulation are reactive, i.e., reflexes elicited by adequate stimuli. This target article suggests that the responses of the circulation are conditional in three senses. First, as Sherrington argued, reflexes are conditional in that they never operate in a vacuum but in a context together with other reflexes. Guided by functional utility, they interact rather than add. Second, as Pavlov argued, stimuli acquire meanings as a result of experience. This notion of stimulus effect plus the Sherringtonian notion of conditionality suggest that association is one of the ways stimuli eliciting cardiovascular reflexes acquire their meanings and thus their relative strengths. Finally, as Skinner and others have argued, operants are responses that act upon the environment to obtain consequences – that is, stimuli. As operants, cardiovascular responses fulfill a major biological need, functioning proactively. The cardiovascular response is an integral component of the animal's behavior regardless of whether it is an elicited reflex or the eliciting stimulus acquired its properties as a result of the genetic inheritance of the animal or through experience, or the cardiovascular response is emitted in anticipation of an environmental consequence. The main theses of this essay are: (1) behavior is an integrated set of responses and the circulation is one of the response systems comprising behavior; (2) behavior is, in part, determined by its functional significance within a context; (3) the contextual factors operative at the time of the behavior have a major role in determining which of the set of possible responses will determine the final act, that is, which behavior will be the effective response and which other behaviors will be concomitants.

show abstract

Operant Conditioning of Autonomic Responses: One Perspective on the Curare Experiments

Cited by 13 publications

References 77 publications

Awareness of the response after feedback training for changes in heart rate and sudomotor laterality.

Awareness of the response after feedback training for changes in heart rate and sudomotor laterality.

The polyvagal perspective

An essay on the circulation as behavior

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About