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Interaction of Learned Relaxation and Aversion
Author(s) -
Grings William W.,
Schandler Steven L.
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1977.tb01174.x
Subject(s) - psychology , aversive stimulus , stimulus (psychology) , conditioning , audiology , reinforcement , relaxation (psychology) , skin conductance , developmental psychology , neuroscience , cognitive psychology , social psychology , medicine , statistics , mathematics , biomedical engineering
Stimulus controlled elicitation of aversive and relaxation responses was used in a compound stimulus transfer paradigm to examine counterconditioning of autonomic responses. During a single session, experimental and control groups of 18 subjects each received aversive conditioning and relaxation training to criteria. For experimental subjects, both learning experiences involved signal stimuli, whereas control subjects received no contingencies between training and cues. Test trials were presented prior to aversive conditioning and after training was completed. On each test trial subjects received presentations of the aversive cue alone, a compound of the aversive cue with an untrained cue, and a compound of the aversive cue with the relaxation cue. During the preconditioning test trials there were no differences among skin conductance and digital pulse volume responses to the test stimuli. On the test trials after training, responding was significantly reduced to the compound of aversive cue and relaxation cue, as compared to the aversive cue alone or the compound of aversive cue and untrained cue for the experimental group. Control group responses did not differ.