The conditioned eyelid reaction.

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Abstract
Since the eyelid reaction may be controlled voluntarily to some extent, the speed with which a subject was able to wink in response to an auditory stimulus was compared with the time which elapsed between the reception of a conditioning stimulus and the resultant eyelid reflex, the assumption being that if the time of the latter is faster than the former, one is in the presence of a reaction not voluntarily controlled. The time was measured with a Bergström chronoscope which was electrically connected with a thin aluminum lever attached to the observer's eyelid. The fundamental stimulus consisted of a current from an induction coil applied to a branch of the third cranial nerve in such a manner as to bring out most effectively the lid reflex; the click of a relay served as an auditory conditioning stimulus. The data used in working up the results were obtained from measurements of the speed of winking to the shock, with and without the auditory stimulus, and to the auditory stimulus with the shock eliminated, both before and after the training period. With most subjects it was possible to secure conditioned reflexes of the eyelid to sound which were considerably faster than voluntary reactions. For one subject, e.g., the average voluntary reaction time was 263.6 sigma, whereas the conditioned reaction time was 144.3 sigma. The experimental procedure indicated that the intensity of a sound used for a conditioning stimulus should be just below the threshold of the natural reflex wink at the beginning of the training period. There is some evidence for believing that a reflex cannot be established when the conditioning stimulus comes after the fundamental stimulus. From Psych Bulletin 19:12:00913. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

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