Effects of varying signaling and intensity of shock on an unconfounded and novel electrodermal autonomic index in a variable and long-interval classical trace conditioning paradigm

On testing current cognitive theories of Pavlovian conditioning in the human Pavlovian autonomic transswitching preparation

The Rescorla-Wagner theory, which Lachnit and Kimmel's transswitching evidence has apparently contradicted, is fundamentally cognitive, inasmuch as it views Pavlovian conditioning as "the learning of relations among events". Kimmel and Lachnit's criticism that Lovibond's theory-saving defence "does little more than immunize a theory against problematic empirical findings" is analogous to the charge of circularity in explanation that cognitive, Tolmanian researchers used to bring against their S-R, Hullian opponents. A way out of the circle in human autonomic transswitching is to measure the cognitive process of relational conditional stimulus-unconditional stimulus contingency learning throughout the experiment, as has been done in simple Pavlovian human autonomic conditioning, although it may also be desirable to check whether such continuous measurement changes the basic transswitching phenomenon itself. The other issue briefly commented on is the relation between animal and human experiments and theoretical formulations, where the more basic distinction may be not between animals and humans, but between conditional stimulus-instrumental response and conditional stimulus-conditional response preparations. The latter preparations (of which human electrodermal transswitching is an instance) appear to be sensitive to S-R as well as (cognitive) S-S factors.

Electrodermal characteristics in psychosomatic patient groups

Specific autonomic reaction patterns in different psychosomatic patient groups have been observed by several authors. In our study 50 male hypertensive patients and 47 male duodenal ulcer patients both in the early mild reversible stage of disease were compared with 65 male control persons to determine distinguishing features of electrodermal activity in response to a sequence of verbal, acoustic and colour stimuli. The two patient groups show opposite characteristics in respect to the initial skin resistance level, response amplitude and non-specific responses. Slower recovery can be seen only in an emotionally disturbing situation in the duodenal ulcer group. On the contrary, in orienting situations the control persons tend to show slower electrodermal recovery. According to the results of factor analysis, the components of electrodermal activity belong to 3 different factors, underlining the relative independence of these parameters. The first factor contains the electrodermal amplitude values. The temporal characteristics of electrodermal responses belong to two different factors, the first being in connection with the orienting situation and the second with the emotionally disturbing situation. The longer recovery in orienting situations is associated positively with facilitating achievement anxiety and negatively with debilitating achievement anxiety. The anxiety and neurosis scores belong to the third factor in connection with the prolonged electrodermal responses in emotionally disturbing situations. Anxiety and depression scores are higher in both patient groups, in accordance with the results of earlier studies. The parameters of electrodermal responses were analyzed as a function of psychological characteristics.