Divergences among rabbit response systems during three-tone classical discrimination conditioning.

Abstract

ASSESSED DIFFERENCES IN ACQUISITION AND DISCRIMINATION AMONG NICTITATING MEMBRANE (NM), HEART RATE (HR), AND RESPIRATION RATE (RR) RESPONSE SYSTEMS IN A CLASSICAL CONDITIONING EXPERIMENT. 4 GROUPS OF 8 RABBITS WERE GIVEN ACQUISITION AND EXTINCTION TRAINING IN A DESIGN THAT REINFORCED EITHER 1 OR 2 OF 3 TONES IN EITHER A UNIDIRECTIONAL OR A BIDIRECTIONAL MANNER. FASTEST RATES OF CR ACQUISITION AND DISCRIMINATION FORMATION AS WELL AS GREATEST DISCRIMINATION CAPABILITY WERE REVEALED IN THE HR SYSTEM. THE RAPID ACQUISITION OF HR DISCRIMINATIONS RELATIVE TO SLOWER ACQUISITION AND DISCRIMINATION FORMATIONS OF NM RESPONSES INDICATED THAT NM ACQUISITION CURVES REFLECT SOMETHING IN ADDITION TO AN S'S LEARNING THAT A UCS FOLLOWS A PARTICULAR CS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)