EFFECTS OF AVERSIVE CLASSICAL-CONDITIONING ON HABITUATION OF UNCONDITIONED SKIN-CONDUCTANCE RESPONSE

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate the effect of classi cal conditioning on the amplitude of the unconditoned response (UR). T he conditioned stimulus (CS) was a 340 Hz tone, and the unconditioned stimulus (US) consisted of a white noise with an intensity of 105 dBs. Twenty five subjects were presented with 20 trials of delayed conditi oning, with an interval between the CS and the US of 0.5 seconds (s). A further 25 subjects received the same number of presentations of bot h stimuli, but in an explicitly randomized order. The dependent variab le was the amplitude of the skin conductance response (SCR) elicited b y the US on each trial, The results showed that the amplitude of the S CR decreased throughout the acquisition trials in both groups. However , a greater decrease in SCR was observed in the conditioning group. It can be concluded, therefore, that aversive classical conditioning fac ilitates the habituation of the unconditioned SCR.