Intensity of the conditioned stimulus and strength of conditioning: II. The conditioned galvanic skin response to an auditory stimulus.

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Abstract
Strength of conditioning of the galvanic skin response (GSR) was investigated as a function of the intensity of a conditioned auditory stimulus. Sixteen exptl. groups of 5 human subjects each were used in an exptl. design in which the effects of intensity of conditioned stimulus (CS) during re-enforcement was orthogenal to the effects of intensity of CS during extinction. The CS was a 200-cycle tone at 76, 86, 96 and 106 db. intensity levels. The unconditioned stimulus (UCS) was an electric shock. Each subject received a 10-trial adaptation series with the extinction intensity of the CS alone, a 20-trial re-enforcement series with the re-enforcement intensity of the CS plus the UCS, and a 10-trial extinction series with the extinction intensity of the CS, and finally a 5-trial re-extinction series with the re-enforcement intensity of the CS. There were no statistically significant effects of CS intensity upon the strength of conditioning. The response strength increased with increasing CS intensity for both the extinction and re-extinction series and in the latter case the trend was significant.

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