Autonomic responses evoked by a forced-discrimination procedure.
- 1 January 1964
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Psychological Association (APA) in Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology
- Vol. 58 (1) , 118-123
- https://doi.org/10.1037/h0043905
Abstract
Twenty-seven Ss were run in a visual forced-discrimination procedure where shock was paired with 1 light intensity. Brighter and dimmer lights were also presented but never associated with shock. Nonshock lights were then gradually converged toward shock light until it was impossible to discriminate between them. Measures of skin conductance and pulse rate were obtained at spaced intervals, to examine the effects of increasing discrimination difficulty on autonomic responses. There was a marked reaction in all measures during the 1st period, reflecting a state of initial anxious expectation; a diminished reaction in the 4th period when discrimination was well established; and then progressively larger reactions (particularly in pulse rate) in later periods as discrimination became more difficult.Keywords
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- Psychophysiological approaches to the evaluation of psychotherapeutic process and outcome.Published by American Psychological Association (APA) ,2004