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The sensitivities of T-wave amplitude (TWA) and heart rate (HR) to manipulations of the mental effort (ME) and incentive associated with performance of the backward digit span task were investigated. The experimental task was so chosen because it could be administered without requiring subjects to speak during its performance, thus minimizing the intrusion of respiratory and motor artifacts. The ME required during task performance was manipulated by varying the number of digits presented, creating Hard and Easy trials. The incentive for subjects to perform well was varied by the threat of the delivery of a noxious noise stimulus, which was ostensibly contingent upon adequate performance on some (Test) but not other (Practice) trials. TWA attenuation and HR acceleration were greater on the Hard as compared to the Easy Trials, and on the Test as compared to the Practice trials. No interactions between the ME and Incentive factors emerged for either cardiac variable. These results suggest that the effort and the incentive of subjects during mental work may be indexed reliably by phasic changes in TWA and HR. The conjoint use of these two cardiac measures may also elucidate the involvement of the two autonomic branches during task performance.

For a closer analysis of what has been characterized as the ‘dilemma concerning the tole of orienting reaction recovery (ORR) in short-interval human classical autonomic conditioning, it is necessary to distinguish between two related but different positions. The reducibility thesis appears to assert that all such conditioning phenomena can be fully accounted for in terms of ORR, while the methodological confound position maintains only that conditioning and orienting factors may be confounded. The reducibility thesis is shown to have a readily testable, and empirically false, consequence. The methodologicalconfound position, which is less vulnerable to empirical test than the reducibility thesis, can nevertheless be subjected to an analytic, though indirect, empirical evaluation. That evaluation indicates that ORR is not a robust effect under conditions similar to those of short-interval conditioning and that no ORR study has been performed under conditions that really parallel those of short-interval conditioning in terms of instructions, interstimulus interval, and ratio of charge to repetition trials. The methodological-confound position, while pointing to a conceivable source of confounding, has no empirical basis for its validity under the appropriate experimental requirements. It is concluded, therefore, that analysis of current evidence indicates ORR's role in short-interval autonomic conditioning to be negligible. The ORR ‘dilemma’ appears to have only logical, but little empirical, force.

Informational Control theories predict that (a) a signal preceding a noxious, unavoidable stimulus will reduce the perceived intensity of that stimulus, and (b) it is the information provided by the signal that is responsible for this effect. In the present experiment, the first prediction was evaluated by presenting all subjects with a series of shocks under a signalled condition (light signal preceding shock onset), and two types of unsignalled conditions (light and shock simultaneous, and no light The second prediction was tested during the signalled trials by varying the information provided by the light signal: subjects were divided into four groups, and each group received high or low amounts of temporal and contingency signal information. Neither prediction was supported & the results: (a) a signal preceding the shock did not affect the perceived intensity; (b) subjects magnitude estimations of perceived shock intensity also yielded no significant effects of signal information. However, unsignalled shocks which occurred simultaneously with the light were rated significantly higher in intensity than either the signalled shocks or the unsignalled shocks which were not accompanied by a light. This suggests that simultaneous light signal + shock is an inappropriate control for testing hypothesis (a). We speculate on the reasons for this problem.

As part of a programme the ultimate goal of which is to teach behavioural control of stress-induced maladaptive cardiac accelerations through Pavlovian decelerative conditioning, this study was directed at examining the feasibility of using tilting of the body from a head-up to a head-down position as the unconditional stimulus (UCS) to elicit phasic cardiac deceleration as the unconditional response (UCR). Experiment I assessed the reflexive features of the cardiac response to 32 tilt UCS trials delivered at mean intervals of 75 sec. The results yielded a large-magnitude (over 30 BsPM) cardiac decelerative UCR with fast recruitment and complete resistance to habituation. Experiment II examined the feasibility of using the tilt UCS to demonstrate associative control over decelerative responding to a tone as the conditional stimulus (CS). Relative to a control ‘backward’ UCS-CS group with an interstimulus interval (ISI) of 14.5 sec, a 0.5 sec ISI CS-UCS experimental group demonstrated both orderly acquisition and extinction performance. The magnitude of the conditional deceleration of some 4 BsPM is greater than the extent of control generally achieved with biofeedback, but still constitutes a problem for theoretical accounts of classical conditioning framed in terms of stimulus substitution, and is still only of borderline clinical significance.

The aim of these studies was to determine the effects of instructions and reinforcement contingency on phasic heart rate (HR) change. In Exp. I, 36 human subjects were given 20 conditioning trials with a muscletensing task which produced a phasic HR acceleration. The experimental manipulation produced an elevated baseline and allowed for the observation of instructed HR change during exercise. A 2 × 2 between subject design varied instructions (to increase or decrease the phasic tension-induced HR acceleration) and contingency (whether the verbal reinforcement was contingent on or unrelated to HR change) as factors. There was a significant instructional effect at the end of conditioning, with increase subjects producing more HR acceleration and decrease subjects less acceleration relative to pretrials. The instructional effect developed over trials and decrease subjects significantly improved with practice. There was no difference between contingent and non-contingent groups in either of the two conditions in ability to change HR in the instructed direction. This study shows the usefulness of the elevated baseline technique for cardiac research. A second experiment demonstrated that, in subjects not instructed to attempt HR change, the phasic HR response did not change in magnitude over conditioning. The results of these studies indicate that subjects are able to control phasic HR during physical-stress induced tension but biofeedback is not relevant for the production of such HR changes.

The primary aims are to elaborate on and clarify two general issues which are raised in the context of assessing contingency theory: (a) the operational requirements and the psychophysical considerations for assessing autonomic excitatory and inhibitory factors in Pavlovian conditioning, and (b) the topic of the appropriate CR specification in the autonomic electrodermal system. Our substantive conclusion, based on an evaluation of the methodology of available human autonomic studies, is that there is no empirical support for the contingency truly random control procedure. In addition, contrary to the suggestion of striking analogies with the skeletal eyelid system, a latency criterion should not be used to deny associative status to first-interval electrodermal responses, provided that these do satisfy conventional behavioral criteria for associative conditioning, e.g., discrimination.

A new experimental chamber is described that permits rats to demonstrate behavioral preference for one of two conditions by running towards a goal chamber by one of two routes that are correlated with the different conditions. In a preliminary study, rats chose a route correlated with relatively lower shock, demonstrating the sensitivity of the apparatus. We also report evidence using this device that, of 10 rats tested, all preferred unsignaled rather than signaled, inescapable, unavoidable shock.

This study was directed at examining the feasibility of using a respiratory-induced cardiac decelerative reflex as an unconditioned response (UCR) in a Pavlovian conditioning paradigm. Experiment I assessed the reflexive features of the cardiac response under a respiratory procedure which involved 3 sec of exhalation, 4 sec of inhalation, and then 30 sec of breath-holding (BH). The results indicated that the BH onset aspect of this respiratory cycle involved a phasic, large-magnitude cardiac deceleration (27 beats/min) with short latency, fast recruitment, and no indication of habituation over trials. Experiment II examined the feasibility of using BH onset as an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) in a Pavlovian paradigm by presenting an auditory conditional stimulus (CS) 1 sec prior to the instructed BH aspect of the respiratory cycle. A separate control condition involved presenting the CS 10 sec after BH onset which constituted a 'backward' conditioning control. The results indicated that the conditioning group displayed a significant cardiac deceleration on CS-alone test trials (under normal breathing) in contrast to the absence of such an effect for the control group. In brief, the study suggested that a decelerative conditioned response (CR) could be established by using a respiratory-induced cardiac deceleration as a Pavlovian UCS. Potential clinical applications of such a decelerative CR were noted.

Ninety subjects were tested in a single-cue Pavlovian conditioning paradigm involving three groups which differed with regard to the contingency relationship between CS and US (negative contingency, zero contingency, positive contingency). To examine the relationship between conditioned GSR performance and subject's cognitive beliefs regarding the CS-US relationship, both GSR and CS-US relational learning were constantly measured on a continuous scale over the entire experimental session. The data suggest the independence of autonomic and cognitive responding in the single-cue Pavlovian paradigm.

Five groups of subjects were used to investigate the sensitivities of HR and T-wave amplitude for detecting stress associated with the performance of a difficult mathematical task and the anticipation of a noxious, noise stimulus following the task. During performance on the mathematical task, there were no group differences but HR showed a significant biphasic, acceleration-deceleration response while T-wave was significantly attenuated and remained attenuated for the entire duration of the task. During the anticipation period prior to the occurrence of the noxious stimulus, HR showed significant differentiation between the 5 groups in terms of the degree of anticipatory HR deceleration that developed while, on the other hand, T-wave amplitude merely returned from the attenuated level during task performance toward baseline levels at the same rate for all groups. It was concluded that T-wave amplitude was a more sensitive index of cognitive stress associated with the performance of a mathematical task while HR was a more sensitive index of anticipatory stress associated with the anticipation of a noxious event. In addition, it was concluded that most HR changes were parasympathetically mediated regardless of direction.

Twenty Ss were presented with 15 300-msec tones (for half the Ss) or lights (for the remaining Ss) followed by a change trial to the other modality. There was highly reliable habituation in the electrodermal skin resistance response (SRR) and the plethysmographic pulse volume (PV), but no clear habituation in the plethysmographic blood volume (BV). Change produced reliable increases in all three orienting-reaction (OR) components. Application of signal-detection methods showed SRR to be a more sensitive index of both initial OR and OR to change than either PV or BV, which were not different. Neither PV nor BV were correlated with SRR, but the BV-PV correlations were significant, and, when corrected for attenuation, approximated +.75. The problem of why the plethysmographic OR components sometimes habituate to stimulus repetition, and sometimes do not, was discussed, but it was concluded that while some possible explanations have been eliminated by the present results, the problem itself still awaits solution and poses a challenge to psychophysiologists.

Conventional operant biofeedback methods have not generally been successful in producing large-magnitude cardiac decelerations, whereas a Pavlovian approach using negative body tilt as an unconventional unconditional stimulus (US) has been reported to yield more promising results. The two experiments reported here employed this powerful (elicits decelerations of 35 bpm) new US in an “imaginational” form of Pavlovian conditioning wherein the conditional stimulus (CS), rather than being a conventional and simple one (e.g., tone or light), was the following complex event: the word “drop” to which the subject was instructed to drop his head back, imagine the US, and, to help this imaginational process, to roll his eyes back. In Exp. I this complex CS was temporarily paired with the US at a .5-sec CS-US interval for 12 Experimentals, whereas for 12 Controls the same complex CS followed the US by 17 sec in a long backward-control arrangement. The CS in the Experimentals yielded some 10 bpm decelerative responses relative to the 4-bpm levels of the Controls, and during extinction (US omitted) the Experimentals' decelerations returned to the 4-bpm level of the Controls. Exp. II assessed the possible contribution of the various motoric aspects of the complex “drop” CS by presenting 10 subjects with the same “drop” CSs, but omitting both the associated tilt USs and instructions to imagine the tilt. With these omitted, the “drop” CS produced no significant decelerations. Finally, a significant Experimental-Control difference in Exp. I indicated that the deceleration training shows generalization or transfer to a situation where the subject is sitting up in a normal position rather than lying on the tilt table.

Critical thinking is much talked about but little understood. Research into critical thinking might benefit from closely examining the nature of Socratic inquiry.

The reason for considering definitional issues is not that of arriving at a universally agreed-to definition, but rather that of illuminating scientific disagreements. From this viewpoint it will be argued that operational and analogical definitions which have been offered by psychophysiology are not useful, because they do not permit the settling of disputes on objective grounds. Those grounds are relevant only for genuine definitions, which can be tested in terms of the counter-example argument in general, and in particular in terms of whether they adequately differentiate psychophysiology from the closely related but diffent area of physiological psychology. One such genuine but inadequate definition is that offered by Stern (1964), which differentiates the two areas in terms of the dependent and independent variables being, respectively, manipulated and measured. The definition offered here is in terms of the interests of the investigator, and is that psychophysiology is the study of psychological processes in the intact organism as a whole by means of unobtrusively measured physiological processes . I shall argue that this definition more adequately differentiates psychophysiology from physiological psychology than does Stern's definition. In addition, I shall suggest that adopting this definition does not isolate the two areas from one another, but rather brings them into a more scientifically meaningful relationship. Finally, I shall illustrate, with some examples, how (implicity adopted) definitions that are different from the proposed one here lead to substantive differences in both the conduct and evaluation of research in psychophysiology. Definitional issues, in other words, are not only of relevance for ivory-tower, armchair philosophers. They affect not only the practice of empirical basic research, but also applied practice.

The reliability and sensitivity of changeover for signalled inescapable shcok was assessed in seven experiments. Evidence from Experiments la-ld showed that the asymmetrical changeover preparation (ACP) intended to measure preference for signalled to unsignalled shock was not reliable in that a marked and stable changeover for signalled shock could be obtained in only 1 of 24 rats tested. Evidence from Experiment le that rats would not even readily changeover from shock to no shock further indicated that the ACP is an inadequate method for evaluation preference. Experiment IIa employed a significantly more sensitive symmetrical changeover preparation (SCP) wherein preferenc for low over high intensity shock was found, but Experiment IIb, using SCP found that rats are indifferent to a choice between signalled and unsignalled inescapable shock.

The slow or total lack of decrease in some autonomic responses during extinction in aversive conditioning and concomitant verbalization of fear have remained a problem for learning theories and psychophysiology. Removal of the aversive stimulus should result in a rapid decrement in responding, as it does in cognitive and somatic systems. In laboratory analogues of phobia and clinical neurosis, however, such decreases do not occur in some autonomic responses and reported fear. In this article three areas of research are presented in which dissociations occur between cognitive and autonomic responses: 1) relational learning, 2) phobia, and 3) incubation. The data indicate that there are some important distinctions to be made concerning the properties of different psychological and physiological systems. These distinctions pertain to the differences between cognitive and noncognitive systems, between the two branches of the ANS, and between acquisition and extinction processes. These distinctions lead to a number of hypotheses concerning dissociations between response systems and have important implications for the understanding and treatment of neurosis.

A “necessary-gate” hypothesis is proposed regarding the relationship between awareness of the CS-UCS relationship and autonomic classical conditioning. The hypothesis is that awareness is a necessary but not sufficient condition, and a gate but not analog condition, for human differential autonomic classical conditioning. Evidence in support of the hypothesis is reviewed and directions for future research and theory development are suggested.

The “archival” (refereed journal or invited review) literature almost uniformly indicates that, consistent with most currently popular theories of behavior, rats prefer signaled shocks even when those shocks are un-modifiable. However, the experiments reported in this literature are here examined on the basis of technical-apparatus (instrumentation) and experimental-design (methodological) soundness. With regard to the assessment of instrumentation problems, it was found that a type of modified Skinner box used in preparations reporting strong preference for signaled shock was subject to significant unauthorized modification of shock intensity, attributable in part to the geometry of the shock grid with respect to nonconducting surfaces. Methodological analysis of the structure of the experimental design, associated with evidence in the modified Skinner box, showed that this design is invalid logically as a preference index, because of asymmetrical factors in the behaviors associated with preference and in the consequences arising from these behaviors.

The evidential and logical status of preference-for-signal in the inescapable unmodifiable shock context in rats was examined over a period that has seen the notion of a preference for signalled shock develop from an apparent paradox in the existing conceptual framework of the 1950s to a readily acceptable, established paradigm in the 1970s. The transformation of the phenomenon from paradox to paradigm was found to be unwarranted from an assessment of the merits of symmetrical and asymmetrical preference procedures upon which it was based.

A recent review by Badia, Harsh, and Abbott (1979) fails to draw important distinctions between classes of evidence for the preference-for-signaled-shock (PSS) phenomenon; that is, evidence based on valid and invalid procedures is not differentiated. The present paper cites published arguments that evidence from the asymmetrical changeover procedure (ACP) is invalid. In brief, these arguments can be encapsulated by stating that if PSS exists, it is validly found only in symmetrical, sensitive procedures where it may be determined that the shock is not escapable, and that independent researchers have replicated the main finding of PSS in a reliably large sample of subjects. Accordingly, evidence from ACP should no longer be considered seriously in future attempts to advance understanding of PSS empirically and theoretically.

The main purpose of studying the interrelationships listed in the title was to examine the orienting-reaction (OR) and cognitive (awareness) interpretations of differential electrodermal conditioning (DEC). The method was to perform correlational analyses on the data obtained from three DEC experiments (N = 32, 40, and 32, respectively) which together provided variations in such factors as the CS-US interval, and the sensitivity of the awareness measure of subjective contingency (SC). Following Zeiner and Schell (1971), the OR and responsivity measures were obtained, respectively, from preliminary CS+ trials (tone and light) to-be-paired with the US and from US (shock) trials. The results clearly disconfirmed the cognitive interpretation, since SC was not correlated either with DEC or with OR in any of the experiments. The OR interpretation received some support, but could handle the following aspects of the results only with difficulty: (a) some significant correlations of responsivity with DEC; (b) the fact that the apparently large OR-DEC correlations were reduced when statistical control (through partial correlations) was imposed for the influence of consistent individual differences in responding to the CS+ and CS- stimuli before any conditioning had taken place; (c) the fact that when these individual differences were not significantly present (in Exp. III), the OR-DEC correlation was also not significant. It was noted that the first aspect supported an S-R, contiguity-reinforcement account of DEC, an account which differs from the cognitive and OR interpretations inasmuch as it does not attempt to reduce DEC to some other process.

Classical conditioning experiments which employ CS-US intervals shorter than the latency of the CR, and which therefore require interspersed CS-alone test trials to assess conditioning, are open to the stimulus-sequence-change-elicited (SSCE) OR argument. The form of the SSCE argument which denies associative status to SCRs elicited by the CS-alone test trials is here termed an “empirical red herring” because: a) the argument cannot be dismissed on purely logical grounds, but requires the assessment of evidence for its examination; b) the argument enjoys empirical plausibility in the minds of the scientific community, as evidenced by published statements in both experimental articles and textbook chapters on autonomic conditioning; c) critical examination of the evidence which apparently supports the argument reveals that while the argument has provided a fascinating byway in the progress of our understanding of SCR conditioning, it is now time to bid farewell to the argument since it lacks any genuine empirical base. In the course of examining this particular argument, both the advantages and disadvantages of such arguments for scientific progress are discussed. Finally, it is emphasized that if one wants to study multiple-response phenomena in SCR conditioning, then a longer CS-US interval is clearly desirable. Our message only is that if the aim is to study SCR conditioning—defined as an increase in responding to a CS relative to some appropriate control condition(s) which is attributable to the contiguity of the CS with the UR to the US—in its most robust form, then the short-interval CS-US arrangement should not be avoided on the basis of the SSCE argument which, on examination, turns out to be an empirical red herring.

One of the consequences of the cognitive paradigm shift is that human Pavlovian autonomic conditioning of responses like the GSR has been considered to be a mere epiphenomenon or index of an underlying cognitive process. The paper begins by reviewing evidence against three such reductionist, cognitive accounts, and then proposes a revision of an S-R theory of classical conditioning that was first put forward in the early sixties. The revision is designed to increase the S-R theory's testability, and this increase is demonstrated by indicating four sets of experimental arrangements where the revised S-R theory forbids certain outcomes, and does so in a way that differentiates it from other competing theories. In this way we can proceed to begin the task of determining the boundary conditions of both cognitive and non-cognitive accounts of human Pavlovian autonomic conditioning, instead of engaging in territorial struggles between those accounts, struggles whose outcome is determined by changing Zeitgeist considerations rather than evidential ones.

Five groups of 10 undergraduate subjects each participated in an experiment to examine the effects of perceived control over, and the probability of occurrence of, noxious (white-noise) stimulation on anticipatory heart rate (HR) deceleration. All groups performed an arithmetic task, the numbers for which were changed on each of the 20 trials, but three groups were defined as active groups since they were instructed that the occurrence of noxious stimulation was contingent upon their performance on the task. The actual probability of occurrence of noxious stimulation (i.e., either 0.9, 0.5 or 0.1) was manipulated between these three groups. A fourth (passive) group (0.5 probability of occurrence) was instructed as to the non-contingent relationship between performance and the aversive white noise. The last group was a control group which only performed the task, and thus both provided an estimate of the rate of return to baseline following the expected HR acceleration to the task and eliminated the need for a within-subject control period to assess HR deceleration. The results indicated that all active and passive groups produced significant HR decelerations, relative to the control group, prior to the noxious stimulus. However, all active groups (regardless of probability levels) displayed significantly greater, and required more trials to maximally develop, anticipatory deceleration than the passive group. In addition, the results for the active groups revealed a direct relationship between the probability of occurrence of noxious stimulation and the magnitude of anticipatory deceleration. It is argued that the results cannot be adequately accommodated by the preparatory-adaptive-response theory. A deployment-of-attention account is suggested since it appears both to account for the obtained pattern of results completely and to generate additional testable predictions for the future.

The objective study of behavior, which is the stated aim of our society, does not impose restrictions on the levels of explanatory constructs that are used. The only restriction is that the evidence concerning those constructs be stated in an objective or scientifically communicable way. Thus the concepts that we employ to explain behavior range from the sociologic to the biochemical. This article's underlying thesis is that behavior needs to be investigated at various levels, and that these levels should be clearly differentiated in order to bring these investigations into a scientifically meaningful relationship. The thesis is here illustrated by examining evidence and arguments concerning the utility and status of a noninvasive index of myocardial performance: T-wave amplitude (TWA). The examination begins at a psychophysiological-index level, wherein TWA is considered in terms of how well this noninvasive physiological index differentiates psychological processes. Secondly, at a lower physiological-index level, we consider the assumption that TWA reflects a relatively unitary physiological process, myocardial beta-adrenergic sympathetic influence. Both the grounds for and implications of this assumption are discussed. Finally, at the physiological-index level of discourse, brief reference is made to the mechanism by which changes in beta-adrenergic sympathetic innervation may produce correlated changes in TWA. The overall aim of the article is to differentiate these three levels of investigation, and yet also to consider the interrelationship among these three levels in order to provide a fuller scientific understanding of the phenomena involved.

After 48 subjects were given differential skin-conductance response (SCR) conditioning (six trials each with CS+ and CS−) with a 4-sec CS+US interval and a 100-dB white noise as US, they were divided into three equal groups in a treatment phase that comprised the following conditions for the three groups. For the conditioning group, there were 70 trials of the US paired with CS+ (i.e., CS+US conditioning trials) interspersed with 70 CS− trials (i.e., unpaired CS trials for differential conditioning), at a mean intertrial interval of 20 sec; for the habituation group, the 70 noise USs were presented at the same time as those for the conditioning group, but no CSs were given; for the control group, the conditions of the habituation group were duplicated, except that another strong stimulus, a 1.5-mA shock, replaced the noise US. Following the treatment phase, the effects of the different treatments on differential conditioning were assessed in a final test phase by presenting five CS+ and five CS− stimuli. The initial acquisition stage produced significant and equal SCR differentiation in all three groups, and all three treatments resulted in total habituation of the SCR to the aversive stimulus. Differential conditioning was totally absent during the test phase, not only in the conditioning but also in the habituation group; it was preserved, however, in the control group, which had been (totally) habituated to a stimulus modally different from the US. It is argued that these results support an S-S over an S-R interpretation of conditioning, and therefore provide an empirical extension of the pattern of results reported earlier in response-suppression paradigms wherein the mediational CRs are not directly observed. Also, the results suggest that US habituation is responsible for the nonmonotonic acquisition functions that are often seen in human differential SCR conditioning.

The experiments reported here investigated whether unauthorized shock modification is a factor which mediates the preference for signaled shock phenomenon (PSS) in the shuttlebox. This factor appearednot to have a critical role in PSS on the basis of earlier experiments which reported that PSS occurred in the shuttle-box even when shock was made unmodifiable by scrambling. However, the scrambling used in these experiments was not complete. In Experiments I and II reported here, no PSS occurred with completely scrambled grids; the phenomenon emerged only with unscrambled shock. Experiment III reports evidence indicating a connection between directly assessed modification and PSS with unscrambled shock, with PSS emerging only when modification had begun to occur. The pattern of results from these shuttlebox experiments parallels that found in an earlier study of PSS using a symmetrical-choice, barpress preparation.

A taxonomy is suggested to assist in drawing distinctions between various experimental strategies relevant to what is called “preference for signalled shock (PSS)”. This taxonomy distinguishes between three types of signals (temporal, non-temporal and secondary) and the contents that the different signal-types provide: danger or safety information. Thus distinctions are made between signals which tell whether or not shock will appear, when shock will appear and whether or not signalling will take place. This taxonomy permits the elimination of some apparent conflicts in the literature concerning the presence or absence of PSS and permits more precise evaluation of theories.

Psychophysiological studies, which measure small changes in T-wave amplitude (TWA) induced by behavioral manipulations, usually employ a single electrode placement for obtaining the ECG. The present study varied electrode placement (EP) within subjects among three EPs that have been reported in the literature (a lead-II limb placement, and two chest placements) to determine whether, as has been claimed, the direction of TWA changes can be changed by varying EP. Both HR and TWA were monitored in 24 males during the Baseline, Listen, and Task phases of an iterative subtraction task. The EP variation did not affect the direction of TWA change. Reliable TWA attenuation accompanied by HR acceleration was observed in all leads.

In humans, recent direct investigations of the preference-for-signaled-shock (PSS) phenomenon in over 500 subjects have failed to confirm the existence of this phenomenon. In rats, to whom relatively strong shocks can he given, the evidence is contradictory, and much of it is methodologically confounded. However, a recent shuttlebox study which was free of such confoundings obtained a clear demonstration of PSS in three subjects and suggested that amount of training or experience with the alternatives may he critical for animal PHH. In the present study, the aim was to increase the amount-of-training variable extensively and to usc enough subjects to allow valid statistical assessment of the results. Fourteen rats were therefore trained for 50 days in a shuttlehox preparation which pitted time spent in a signaled unmodifiahle shock condition against time spent in unsignaled unmodifiable shock. No significant group preference emerged for the total sample, although individual subject demonstrations of an orderly preference for signaled and unsignaled shock were possible. Accordingly, while amount of training may he important for successful demonstrations of stable preference for signaled or unsignaled shock, the training variable does not appear to be relevant for determining group PSS. Insofar as group data are concerned, current evidence suggests, then, that, when methodological confoundings are removed, neither humans nor animals should be expected to yield PSS. In fact, new unconfounded evidence in the animal literature, using valid statistical assessment, suggests that under some conditions unsignaled shock is clearly preferred to signaled, inescapable, unmodifiable shock.

The profession of polygraphy uses physiological measures to improve the detection of deception. The science most relevant for assessing the utility of these measures is that of psychophysiology. This article examines the validity of polygraphy from the perspective of the science of psychophysiology, which employs physiological measures to study and differentiate psychological processes. The focus is on the version practiced currently by most members of the American Polygraph Association, the “control question technique” (CQT). A brief consideration of some critical terms is followed by a description of CQT polygraphy, and then by a review of the literature. We conclude that as a scientific tool, CQT polygraphy is of questionable validity, although it is probably a better-than-chance detector of guilt.

Negative preception (NP) has been defined as the attenuation of a noxious stimulus by a signal which precedes it. Explanatory theories to account for the NP phenomenon are available, but the concern of this paper is with the methodological and empirical basis for the existence of the NP phenomenon itself. It is argued that autonomic indices based on shock-elicited responding cannot provide unconfounded evidence for NP because of insurmountable methodological problems associated with response-interference and perceptual-disparity (or orienting-reaction) effects. Furthermore, it is noted that when modified unconfounded autonomic indices have been used, the results failed to support the NP notion. A challenge to the validity of the verbal index of rated intensity is then considered, but it is argued that this verbal index is a valid measure of shock aversiveness. Since the rated-intensity evidence is also generally against the NP notion, it is concluded that both autonomic and verbal indices, when properly evaluated, do not support the view that signaling attenuates shock aversiveness.

The validity of the law of initial value (LIV), which predicts relationships between prestimulus level and phasic response, was evaluated for two cardiac measures, heart rate (HR) and electrocardiographic T-wave amplitude (TWA). HR acceleration and TWA attenuation were produced in undergraduates by the performance of the backward digit span task. The between-subjects correlations of prestimulus level with the magnitude of the phasic responses were significant, with signs opposite to that which would be predicted by the LIV. The within-subjects prestimulus level-phasic response correlations, however, were consistent with the LIV. It appears that individual differences in psychologically-elicited phasic cardiac reactivity negate LIV predictions. These results emphasize the importance of sharply distinguishing the between- vs. within-subjects formulations of the LIV, and are contrary to recent psychophysiology textbook accounts of the prestimulus level-phasic response relationship for cardiac variables.

Contrary to the view held by many modern psychologists that philosophy is irrelevant for psychological research, philosophical considerations can significantly affect the ways in which psychological thinking is shaped. The influence of realism, as put forward by the Sydney University philosopher John Anderson, illustrates the relevance of philosophy. This paper first provides general, and necessarily subjective, impressions of some educational features of the Sydney Psychology Department during the tenure by W. O'Neil (1945-1965) as Head and only Professor of Psychology. It is suggested that the department stressed the conflict of ideas as essential in the process of enquiry. Some autobiographical examples are then given to illustrate how Andersonian realism significantly affected both the conduct and the evaluation of experimental psychological research. The paper concludes by suggesting that autobiographical reflections can be useful in providing a starting point for a broader and more substant...

Following a review of studies employing negative tilt in human Pavlovian conditioning of heart rate (HR) deceleration (Furedy et al., in press), this paper reports data based on animal subjects on such physiological aspects of the decelerative unconditioned response (UR) as the degree of vagal involvement. Five anesthetized dogs underwent 90° negative body tilts pre- and postbilateral vagotomy, while interbeat interval (IBI), left ventricular pressure (LVP) and its first derivative, d(LVP)/dt, which is a measure of sympathetic cardiac drive, were recorded. Consistent with the vagal interpretation of the tilt-induced decelerative UR, the results indicated that vagotomy markedly changed the tilt-induced bradycardic reflex from a fast-recruiting, large-magnitude (over 45%), and sustained (throughout the 20–27-s tilt) IBI increase, to slower-recruiting, and markedly smaller (less than 5%) IBI increase. However, there was also evidence of an initial sympathetic excitation of about 5 s, as indicated by a 45% increase in d(LVP)/dt, which returned to baseline level by 9 s following tilt onset. Vagotomy increased this tilt-induced sympathetic excitation to about 100%, and it remained at above 70% throughout the tilt. Prevagotomy LVP showed a slight (about 10%) and delayed (about 6 s following tilt onset) depressor response, which was eliminated by vagotomy. Finally, unaveraged data from individual dogs suggested that prevagotomy, LVP changes preceded IBI changes. Regarding implications of these results for human HR deceleration-inducing preparations, we conclude that the different physiological mechanisms that accompany and/or produce a given change in HR need continuing investigation with multiple dependent physiological variables (which are assessed for topographical differences), and in both human and animal preparations.

If psychophysiology is the study or differentiation of psychological processes by means of physiological measures, then the experimental demonstration of deception as a psychophysiological phenomenon requires a comparison of physiological responses to two conditions (experimental and control) which differ only with respect to deception. To this end, the Differentiation-of-Deception Paradigm controls for differential question significance and frequency of occurrence. Thirty-two subjects were tested in this paradigm, with the skin conductance response as the dependent variable. We examined, within subjects: a) the basic deception comparison which contrasted relatively neutral autobiographical questions answered deceptively with those answered honestly, and b) the mode of answering, which was either an immediate answer to the question (conventional method) or an answer delayed by 10 seconds. The deception phenomenon (greater responding to deceptive relative to honest trials) emerged significantly (and nondifferentially) to both the immediate and delayed questions, but (perhaps because of response interference) not when responding was measured immediately following the delayed answers. Future research should vary other conditions and measure additional dependent variables with the aim of investigating possible psychological and physiological mechanisms, as well as extending the deception phenomenon beyond its present electrodermal form.

All operations, including nature of chamber and type of shock source, of the Badia and Culbertson (1972 ) inescapable-shock changeover design were replicated with 16 rat subjects. Despite extensive operational replication precautions, only 1 of the 16 subjects showed behavior resembling the changeover behavior of the inescapable-shock subjects reported by Badia and Culbertson (1972). Aside from methodological problems with this type of asymmetrical changeover design which have been raised elsewhere, the present failure in replication appears by itself to suggest that this form of changeover paradigm does not exert sufficient behavioral control to serve as an adequate measure of the preference for signaled or unsignaled shock.

The emancipation of psychology from philosophy was appropriate, because issues in psychological research are not reducible to philosophical ones. However, the view held by many modern psychologists—that philosophy is irrelevant for psychological research—is also false, although it is true that many of the issues pursued by philosophical psychologists are unrelated to those which interest research psychologists. Philosophical considerations can significantly affect psychology. The influence of realism, as put forward by the Sydney philosopher, John Anderson, is a case in point. This paper offers a preliminary analysis of Andersonian influences on psychology. I first discuss the context of Anderson's philosophy and its relevance to contemporary psychological issues, and then offer an appraisal of the work of J. R. Maze, a theoretical psychologist who arguably is the most thoroughgoing contemporary exponent of Andersonian realism, and who has recently presented a systematic exposition of his views i...

Martin and Levey's (1988) commentary on our 1987 chapter points to the need for clearer definition of terms and much more open debate in the area of learning and conditioning. While raising some good points for further discussion, their characterisation of some issues appears to be based on a number of misinterpretations and misrepresentations of our position, and we attempt here to correct these functions. Issues which we regard as misinterpreted are those of truth value as a criterion of the cognitive, the epistemological status of a cognition as opposed to the object of the cognition, and the nature of propositional versus non-propositional learning theories. Issues which are misrepresented are those of our position on the nature of conditioning (which is called cognitive by Martin and Levey, but which is, in fact, a dual-process view), formal versus content-oriented distinctions, and the nature of human and non-human learning processes. Despite these differences between Martin and Levey and ourselves, it is apparent that such debates are necessary for furthering our understanding of the complexity and multiplicity of the processes involved in learning.

This paper describes a fourth-year undergraduate thesis-research course, the form of which has been changed in recent years to maximise the simulation aspect of under- graduate learning. It is suggested that both the "grudging slave"and "unconstrained- scientific-genius" are ineffective models of genuine research activity, and that an "adversary" model is more appropriate. The adversary model system uses a journal- submission analogue in which external judgement (the first "foe") is provided by having the thesis marked not by the supervisor but by other faculty in a complex, not perfect, but apparently fair, grading system. The other "foe" of the student is the deadline for submission of the thesis, a deadline which is rigidly enforced by means of very severe grade penalties for lateness. Responsibility for the thesis is thereby shifted completely to the student who, while contending against these "foes", is also engaged in a number of academically significant collaborative relationships. These relationships include that with the supervisor, with fellow students (in research seminars), and with the thesis co-ordinator, who has negligible influence on the final grade assigned, and can therefore function as a non-authoritarian, disinterested critic. Experience with this adversary model system has shown that it is necessary to provide "symbols of significance" for each component (e.g., the research seminar) of the course, in the form of (small) grades. The function of these grades is to ensure that each component is perceived by students as academically significant. The system inevitably produces sources of tension between the student, supervisor, other students, and co-ordinator. However, it is suggested that this feature is potentially beneficial inasmuch as it produces better simulation of real-life research experience, as well as increasing the student's sense of intellectual responsibility for his own work. Finally, the general applicability of the Toronto experience is discussed. It appears that such factors as departmental size, or research eminence of the faculty, are not critical for successful implementation. What is necessary is a general agreement on what constitutes good and bad research, and a commitment to disinterested enquiry and academic values by a sizeable majority of the faculty of the department in question.

Following the semantic complexities raised in earlier papers, this paper seeks to return to some of the more basic considerations arising from the preceding discussion. A critical part of the context of that discussion is the increasingly important issue of accountability. In this context, the citing of supportive studies is not enough; one must also be able to justify the logical relevance of those studies. The discussion therefore turns on the logic of treatment evaluation, which must be treated as objectively as possible. Also critical is the distinction between the question of whether an effect is present and the question of what the source of that question might be. In the quest for treatment evaluation, only the former question is important. However, this quest is one that is in the interest of researchers, clinicians, and consumers, for all of whom only the facts will do.

Although the joint measurement of heart rate (HR) and T-wave amplitude (TWA) in experiments manipulating psychological processes is a sound and fruitful approach, Penzien Hursey, Kotses and Beazel's (1982) interpretation of their results may be questioned on two grounds: (a) Wether the process being manipulated between their groups was really the degree of stress; and (b) whether the degree of threat or aversiveness is really indexed more reliably by HR changes than by changes in TWA. This note questions these two assumptions, and also offers an alternative vagal interpretation of the Penzien et al. (1982) results.

It has been suggested that the dive reflex (elicited by face immersion in water with breath-hold) may be employed to induce vagally-mediated bradycardia in individuals with paroxysmal atrial tachycardia. However, in several cases the use of this reflex is reported to have led to exacerbation of the cardiac dysfunction. Examination of heartrate and EKG T-wave amplitude changes during the dive in healthy, college-aged individuals indicated that warming the water (10° through 20° C to 40° C) decreased the bradycardia, but did not alter theattenuation (approximately 100 μv) of the T-wave. The latter effect was taken to indicate that sympathetic activity, as indexed by T-wave amplitude, was not reduced by increases in water temperature. On the other hand, a 90° head-up to head-down body tilt produced a bradycardia response of some 30 bpm as well as a T-wave amplitudeincrease (sympathetic withdrawal) in the order of 100 μv. These data suggest that individuals who exhibit symptoms of ventricular sympathetic irritability may be adversely affected by the dive maneuver, regardless of water temperature. The body-tilt induced reflex in such individuals may thus be more appropriate given the large-magnitude bradycardia and absence of T-wave attenuation. At the present, however, the body-tilt preparation has been used only with healthy normal subjects, so this suggestion remains to be directly tested.