PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY OF CONDITIONED EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCES IN HUMANS

A discriminative avoidance conditioning technique was used to study urinary excretion of selected adrenal hormones in response to a stimulus which had acquired conditioned noxious properties through association with availability of punishment. A four day test procedure was employed: (1) to habituate subjects to the test environment; (2) obtain control data; (3) condition subjects; and (4) test reactions to the conditioned noxious stimulus. Urine samples were taken at two‐hour intervals preceding and following each of the four trials, and were analyzed for epinephrine, norepinephrine, total 17‐hydroxycorticosteroids, and other urinary constituents. These results were correlated with results obtained from monitoring of heart rate, skin resistance, blood pressure, and three measures of panel monitoring performance. Data analyses revealed significant changes from control levels during the test period for each of the principal measures described above and some specification of life systems interrelationships through correlation and factor analyses. Factors were identified which related to behavioral efficiency, psychological effort, fluid transport regulation, cardiovascular‐adrenal, and specific epinephrine and norepinephrine factors.