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Effects of Conditioned Stimulus Fear‐Relevance and Preexposure on Expectancy and Electrodermal Measures of Human Pavlovian Conditioning
Author(s) -
Booth Michael L.,
Siddle David A. T.,
Bond Nigel W.
Publication year - 1989
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.1469-8986.1989.tb01918.x
Subject(s) - psychology , expectancy theory , classical conditioning , fear conditioning , conditioning , stimulus (psychology) , unconditioned stimulus , neutral stimulus , measures of conditioned emotional response , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , neuroscience , social psychology , stimulus control , amygdala , statistics , mathematics , nicotine
The present research investigated the effects of fear‐relevance of the conditioned stimulus (CS) and CS preexposure on human electrodermal conditioning and on a continuous measure of expectancy of the unconditioned stimulus (US). Both experiments employed 20 preexposure, 8 acquisition, and 8 extinction trials in a differential Pavlovian conditioning paradigm with shock as the US. In Experiment 1 (N = 48), electrodermal conditioning was retarded by CS preexposure, but was not influenced by fear‐relevance of the CS. Expectancy of the US was retarded by preexposure only in the fear‐relevant condition. In Experiment 2 (N = 48), the CS/US contingencies were embedded in a visual masking task. Preexposure retarded both electrodermal conditioning and US expectancy. Neither measure was influenced by fear‐relevance of the CS. However, fewer subjects in the preexposure condition learned the CS/US relationship and those who did, did so on a later trial than those in the no‐preexposure condition. Thus, the results indicated clear retardation of conditioning as a result of preexposure, but no reliable effect of fear‐relevance.