Skin conductance response conditioning with CS intensities equal to and greater than UCS intensity

Abstract

With .2-sec bursts of white noise as both conditioned stimulus (CS) and unconditioned stimulus (DCS), conditioning of first-interval skin conductance responses was obtained when the intensity of the CS equaled and exceeded that of the DCS. There was no evidence that second-interval response conditioning occurred. Nonspecific response frequencies were also affected by the variations in stimulus intensity, this raising some question about typical controls employed in SCR conditioning. There was some evidence that second interval responses were suppressed by the intense CS values. It was concluded that the existence of simple conditioning with a CS/DCS intensity ratio equal to or greater than unity was contrary to the Pavlovian proposition that a CS must be biologically less salient than the DCS in order for conditioning to occur. It was noted, however, that the suppression of second-interval responses might indicate that anticipatory CRs which are not confounded with orienting reflexes are prevented from exhibiting a conditioning effect when a high CS/DCS intensity ratio is employed.

Classically conditioned bradycardia and skeletal-motor activity in restrained rats

“…Alternatively, it might be that the CS and US intensity difference was not crucial and that the CS became a signal for the US simply because it was the first event in a closely spaced two-event sequence. The latter possibility would be consistent with a report (Prokasy, Williams, & Clark, 1975) of GSR conditioning in humans using the same intensity auditory stimulus as the CS and US. In the present case, however, a single pulse of the same intensity shock to the rat's tail was employed as both the CS and US in an unpublished follow-up study, and no HR CR appeared.…”

First Interval Skin Conductance Responses: Conditioned or Orienting Responses?

“…Table 1 presents mean FIR probability for the three pairs of groups, the pairs differing only in that one subgroup of each pair of groups received a 95 dB signal, the other a 115 dB signal. As expected (and confirming prior findings by Prokasy, Williams, & Clark, 1975), for both stimulus intensity levels Group E performance was reliably greater than Group CI performance. This contrast is one which investigators typically employ to infer that there is a CS-US contingency effect on the FIR.…”

Short‐Interval Classical SCR Conditioning and the Stimulus‐Sequence‐Change‐Elicited OR: The Case of the Empirical Red Herring

“…I^ should be noted that reliable "conditioning''in these temis obtained m long ISI arrangements in the "secondinterval response" (SIR) by: Dawson (1970); Dawson and Reardon (1973);Furedy (1973); Schiffmann and Furedy (1972);Prokasy, Williams, and Clark (1975).…”

“…Yet when the identical theory (cf., e.g., Jones, 1962) and Russian positions "surrogate'' US arrangements (e.g., Furedy, 1969) (cf., Gormezano & Tait, 1976), predict excitatory yielded apparently contrary results to the argument, conditioning, most North American "pairings" the common reaction of referees and other propoanalyses predict no conditioning, and "contin-nents of the argument was that such conditioning gency" positions (cf., e.g., Rescorla, 1967) predict "analog" situations were not, after all, "relevant" inhibitory conditioning. Finally, Prokasy and his to assessing the argument, associates have recently reopened the old but still More generally, as the more recent citations of critical Pavlovian issue of whether the biological Prokasy et al (1973) show, the earlier contrary saliency of the CS relative to the US is critical for evidence relevant to a short-interval like SSCE OR conditioning (cf., e.g., Prokasy et al, 1975). Un-effect of Furedy (1969), (critically examined) Badia fortunately, apparently accepting the methodologi-and Defran (1970), Gliner et al (1971), and the cal-confound version of the SSCE OR argument, material reviewed by O'Gorman (1973) has apparthese workers mle out the short-interval paradigm ently had negligible effects on the sti-ength of belief (where conditioning is most robust, as indicated of the scientific community in the SSCE OR arguabove) from consideration because of the "numer-ment's empirical validity.…”