The acquisition of conditioned emotional response as a function of intertrial interval

The effects of intertrial interval (ITI) and foreperiod duration on the acquisition of a conditioned emotional response were investigated using a four-trial conditioning procedure. The optimum ITI was found to be 60 s with a bidirectional gradient for conditioned suppression above and below 60 s. Conditioned supression was found to be directly related to foreperiod duration.     

The effect of person on a conditioned emotional response of schizophrenic and normal subjects

Thirteen normal and 13 schizophrenic Ss were given 100 tone-shock trials over five days under four conditions: the S alone in the experimental room, a person present in the room, the person talking to the S, and the person massaging the S’s shoulder. Results showed an inhibitory effect of the social stimulus on the HR-CR and HR-UR of normals. For schizophrenics, conversely, the effect of the social stimulus was to increase HR responses during tone-shock and social interactions. A social learning analysis suggested early emotional and autonomic conditioning to significant persons and later generalization to others as primary determinants of HR indices of social responding. It was suggested that variation of the past relationship with anE and measurement of Ss’ perceptions of the experimenter-social stimulus together with physiological responses could contribute to analysis of the component variables of affectional and attachment responses.     

Dissociation between conditioned emotional response and extended avoidance performance

The present experiments examined the dissociation between the strength of a shuttlebox avoidance response (AR) and one index of fear of the avoidance CS. Avoidance response strength was indexed by resistance to extinction of the AR and by changes in response latency, and fear of the CS was indexed by the conditioned emotional response (CER) technique. Experiments 1, 2A, and 3A all found that rats trained to a criterion of 27 consecutive avoidance responses (CARs) showed response strength comparable or superior to rats trained to a criterion of 9 CARs. Experiments 2B and 3A demonstrated that rats trained to 27 CARs showed less suppression of bar pressing during the avoidance CS (less CER) than rats trained to 9 CARs. Experiment 3A also found that, when extinguished in the shuttlebox to a moderate criterion (5 consecutive trials without a response) before CER testing, rats trained to 9 CARs showed some, although not complete, loss of CER, whereas rats trained to 27 CARs showed no loss of CER. In Experiment 3B rats that took 1 vs 2 days to reach a criterion of 27 CARs were compared for their AR strength and for their CER. Although rats taking 2 days to reach criterion showed somewhat greater resistance to extinction of the AR than rats reaching criterion in 1 day, this variable had no apparent effect on the CER. Implications of the present results for current theories of avoidance learning are discussed.     

The conditional emotional response as a model of pavlovian conditioning

Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science - Many investigators have assumed that the conditional emotional response (CER) with its attendant response measure, response suppression, can be...