Behavioral Variability Related to Stimulation of the Cat's Amygdala

Abstract

BEHAVIOR of a single subject performing the same task over varying time periods is rarely without variation. Most published learning curves, for example, usually are plots of the average values for a number of subjects at each point on the curve. These curves of mean values for a group of subjects usually are smooth and negatively accelerated. If the performance for a single subject is plotted, however, it usually is not a smooth curve. There will be considerable intra-individual variation from a hypothetical smooth curve from trial to trial. The same intra-individual variation of performance will be obtained when tasks are used which are not heavily dependent on learning. The writer has been studying the parameters of intra-individual variability of performance on a broad spectrum of tasks using human subjects.^1-6 Wide variation in intra-individual response variability has been obtained in these studies. Further, it has been demonstrated that