Attempted pupillary conditioning at four stimulus intervals.

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Pupillary conditioning was attempted on 2 successive days with each of 43 adult human subjects. The conditioned stimulus was a supra-threshold buzzer, the unconditioned stimulus an illumination increase. The stimulus-intervals used with different groups included the buzzer and light presented together, and the buzzer preceding the light by 3, 6, and 9 sec. Successful conditioning with one subject at the 6-sec. interval demonstrated that the recording method was satisfactory to detect conditioned responses of small magnitude. Conditioning was generally unsatisfactory at all 4 stimulus intervals. Although at the 3- and 6-sec. intervals responses reached the 0.05 level of significance, no group reached the 0.02 level. Conditioning must go beyond bare statistical significance if it is to be useful in the study of learning. The search for more satisfactory methods of pupillary conditioning is recommended.
Keywords

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit: