A comparison of eyelid responses conditioned with reflex and voluntary reinforcement in normal individuals and in psychiatric patients.

Abstract

Comparisons of 8 normal individuals and 8 psychiatric patients indicate that: 1) Although the same wink movement was under study in each case, the type of conditioning which arises through voluntary reinforcement differs from that arising through reflex reinforcement in its descriptive characteristics, its course of development and in its type of extinction. Voluntary reinforced conditioned responses exhibit the post-extinction recovery with lapse of time of a characteristic fashion as do reflex reinforced conditioned responses. 2) There are negligible differences in the course of acquisition of either the reflex or the voluntary reinforced conditioned response between normal individuals and psychiatric patients. 3) There is some evidence of a greater perseveration of the learned activity of the voluntary reinforced conditioned response in psychiatric patients.