Extinction of a Human Cardiac-Response during Avoidance-Conditioning

Abstract

The effect of avoidance-training on the extinction of a conditioned cardiac response (heart-beat rate) was analyzed in 3 closely related experiments. Results from 20 Ss indicate: (1) "that the cardiac CR tends toward extinction during the course of avoidance-responding," (2) that extinction is faster when an "exteroceptive signalling stimulus" (a light) is presented with a successful avoidance response, and (3) "that the effectiveness of such signalling may be ascribed to the development of discriminative control over the cardiac CR.".