A BEHAVIORAL PREPARATION FOR THE STUDY OF HUMAN PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING

Citation
F. Arcediano et al., A BEHAVIORAL PREPARATION FOR THE STUDY OF HUMAN PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. B, Comparative andphysiological psychology, 49(3), 1996, pp. 270-283
Citations number
18
Categorie Soggetti
Psychology, Experimental","Psychology, Biological",Psychology,Physiology
ISSN journal
02724995
Volume
49
Issue
3
Year of publication
1996
Pages
270 - 283
Database
ISI
SICI code
0272-4995(1996)49:3<270:ABPFTS>2.0.ZU;2-Z
Abstract
Conditioned suppression is a useful technique for assessing whether su bjects have learned a CS-US association, but it is difficult to use in humans because of the need for an aversive US. The purpose of this re search was to develop a non-aversive procedure that would produce supp ression. Subjects learned to press the space bar of a computer as part of a video game, but they had to stop pressing whenever a visual US a ppeared, or they would lose points. In Experiment 1, we used an A+/B- discrimination design: The US always followed Stimulus A and never fol lowed Stimulus B. Although no information about the existence of CSs w as given to the subjects, suppression ratio results showed a discrimin ation learning curve-that is, subjects learned to suppress responding in anticipation of the US when Stimulus A was present but not during t he presentations of Stimulus B. Experiment 2 explored the potential of this preparation by using two different instruction sets and assessin g post-experimental judgements of CS A and CS B in addition to suppres sion ratios. The results of these experiments suggest that conditioned suppression can be reliably and conveniently used in the human labora tory, providing a bridge between experiments on animal conditioning an d experiments on human judgements of causality.