Stimulus Discrimination Among Autonomic Measures: Individual and Group Characteristics

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Abstract
On three occasions, 5 physiological measures were recorded from 16 male subjects during repeated presentations of 2 tones, one followed and one not followed by electric shock. For the group, it was found that the measures differed significantly in the degree of discrimination between the tones. For the individuals, there were found to exist both consistent hierarchies of degree of stimulus discrimination among the measures, and consistent hierarchies of response magnitude, the latter most markedly present after elimination of prestimulus differences among subjects utilizing the individuals'' regressions. The 2 hierarchies were observed not to be significantly related, and it is suggested that they furnish useful independent characterization of the autonomic function of the individual.