‘Preparedness’ and ‘arousability’ as determinants of electrodermal conditioning

‘Arousability’, as defined through spontaneous electrodermal responses, has been empirically linked to anxiety, phobic symptoms and outcome of systematic desensitization. Previous data from our laboratory indicate that ‘preparedness’, as defined through potentially phobic vs. fear-irrelevant or ‘neutral’ conditioned stimuh, is an important determinant of electrodermal conditioning. The present experiment compared groups selected to be high or low in spontaneous responding during differential conditioning to potentially phobic or neutral stimuh. It was found that the effects of these two factors were essentially additive, i.e. conditioning and resistance to extinction were better for phobic stimuli and for high-arousal groups. The high-aroused group with phobic stimuh showed diffuse responding during acquisition, not differentiating between reinforced and unreinforced cues. However, it was the only group that failed to extinguish during 20 trials, which indicates that high arousal gives superior resistance to extinction particularly for phobic stimuli.     

Timing in the performance of Erik Satie's ‘Vexations’

In traditional studies of single cue probability learning the subject's errors and the covariation he/she establishes between the judgments and the cue (cue dependency) are confounded. Learning results in increased cue dependency which is necessarily accompanied by decreasing errors. This paper presents a method for disentangling errors from cue dependency. This is done by (1) making the criterion contingent upon the judgments instead of the cue, and (2) giving standard instructions, implying that the cue is informative about the criterion. In this way errors are controlled independently of any covariation that the subject may create between the cue and the judgments, and indirectly between the cue and the criterion (task regularity). The paper examines whether subjects aim at small errors or task-regularity when the task does not allow them to do both. It was found that error reduction does occur only when task-regularity can be maintained. Conclusion: task regularity, and thus cue-dependency, has priority to error reduction under the standard conditions used in single cue probability learning experiments. The study may be viewed as an example of conditions under which a cue illusion (false beliefs in the validity of a cue) arises.     

Biological vs experiential factors in phobic conditioning

The present study was performed as a test of phobic conditioning being a case of prepared learning (Seligman, 1971). Skin conductance responses were conditioned in three groups of subjects to either slides of snakes and spiders; electric outlets; or geometric shapes, as conditioned stimuli (CSs) with shock to the forearm as the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). The purpose of the experiment was to compare electrodermal conditioning to potentially phobic CSs, i.e. snakes and spiders, with conditioning to fear-relevant, but non-phobic, CSs, i.e. electric outlets.Each subject saw two pictures, either a snake or a spider; or two different slides of electric outlets; or two different geometric shapes. Only one of the two cues (the CS + ) was immediately followed by the shock-UCS during the acquisition phase. Thus, a differential paradigm was used. There were 4 habituation, 12 acquisition, and 16 extinction trials. The duration of the pictures was 8 sec with an intertrial interval of between 35–45 sec.The results showed reliable effects of conditioning in all three groups during the acquisition phase. Furthermore, a significant interaction during extinction is reported, indicating responses to potentially phobic CSs to be more resistant to extinction than responses to the other two classes of stimuli. It is concluded that the present results favor an interpretation of phobic conditioning in terms of biologically prepared learning.