MEMORY EFFECTS ON SYMPTOM REPORTING IN A RESPIRATORY LEARNING-PARADIGM

With odors as conditioned stimuli (CSs) and CO2-enriched air as the un conditioned stimulus, participants learned to exhibit respiratory resp onses and somatic complaints on presentation of only the odor CS+. Stu died was whether complaints during CS+-only trials were inferred from the conditioned somatic responses or were based on activated memory of the complaints during acquisition. Participants (N = 56) were either attentionally directed away or not from the complaints during acquisit ion, and the effects on somatic complaints during test were studied. R espiratory responses, heart rate, and somatic complaints were measured . No physiological conditioning effects were found. However, more comp laints were reported to the CS+ than to the CS- odor, but only when th e CS+ was foul smelling. This effect was modulated by the attention ma nipulation, showing that the learned complaints during the test phase were based on memory of the acquisition complaints and not on physiolo gical responses during the test.