Two Procedures for Training Cardiac Discrimination: A Comparison of Solution Strategies and Their Relationship to Heart Rate Control

Twenty subjects were trained to detect cardiac activity on two superficially similar discrimination procedures. One group was first trained (to a criterion of 80% correct discriminations) to distinguish between tones that were either contingent or independent of their heart beats and then to distinguish between tones that followed each heart beat with either a short delay or a long delay. The other group was trained on the two procedures in the reverse order. Discrimination strategies were assessed by physiological recordings and questionnaires. No transfer of training was found between the two procedures. Furthermore subjects tended to adopt either an “active” or a “passive” solution strategy depending upon the procedure to which they were first submitted. Subjects who adopted an active discrimination strategy displayed significantly greater voluntary heart rate increases in a post‐discrimination test of heart rate control than did subjects who adopted a passive discrimination strategy.