Recruitment, latency, magnitude, and amplitude of the GSR as a function of interstimulus interval.

Abstract

Five groups of Ss trained at CS-UCS intervals of 0, .5, 1, 3, or 5 sec. were employed in a study of the role of the interstimulus interval (ISI) in the conditioning of the GSR. All Ss received 20 tone-shock pairings followed by 10 tone alone (test) trials. Four attributes of the GSR were measured: amplitude, magnitude, latency, and recruitment. The principal findings were: (a) magnitude was greatest with an ISI of .5; (b) magnitude, but not amplitude, varied with ISI; (c) latency and recruitment both increased as a function of ISI; (d) latency increased across extinction trials, and (e) a second response was observed frequently in Ss exposed to ISI of 3 and 5 sec.