Contrary to implications of previous paired-associate learning studies and Walker's theory, high arousal words showed superior immediate as well as delayed retention. GSRs were reliably greater for the high than the low arousal words. High arousal words also evoked reliably greater cephalic vasoconstriction, defensive reflexes, than low arousal words.

There were 280 college students who served in a semantic conditioning and generalization experiment where galvanic skin response (GSR) and cephalic vasomotor response measures were obtained as well as semantic differential ratings of the control words and the critical conditioned stimulus (CS) and generalization test words. Different groups of students received either 110-dB white noise, 95-dB white noise, 80-dB white noise, a 110-dB tone, or an 80-db tone as the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) during conditioning.An initial habituation series of 15 neutral words was presented. This was followed by semantic conditioning, which consisted of 10 presentations of the word PLANT followed in 10 sec by a UCS. Different unrelated filler words were interspersed among the conditioning trials. A semantic generalization test followed in which different groups received five unreinforced presentations of either TREE or STEM, which were associates of the CS word, or MUSIC, a word unrelated to the CS or other generalization test words.Differential semantic conditioning and generalization were manifested in the GSR index of the orienting reflex and semantic differential ratings. Both measures varied with the UCS condition. In terms of both the GSR and semantic differential ratings, conditioning and generalization were apparent only in students who could verbalize the appropriate stimulus contingencies.The extinction test of generalization indicated that reliable differential generalization occurred to all three test words, the unrelated word MUSIC as well as the two associates PLANT and STEM. What is more, differential semantic generalization of the GSR increased over the five test trials.

This study sought to identify the modifiable parameters of eye-hand coordination in the prism-adaptation situation. The most readily modified parameter was found to be a displacement applying equally to all target positions. A magnification parameter could also be partially modified, in the sense that a wider range of hand movements became identified with a fixed eye-movement range. No nonlinear changes in the eye-hand mapping were found.How closely does the perceptual adaptation to optical distortion compensate for that distortion? The distortion is a rearrangement of the visual stimulus with respect to other stimulus inputs and also with respect to the motor outputs of the individual. The adaptation can be considered to be a kind of "best-fit" inverse rearrangement of the perceptual-motor system, within the degrees of freedom permitted by the modifiable parameters of that system. Through an analysis of the detailed spatial features of the adaptation and whatever mismatch exists between it and the optical distortion, one may hope to identify those modifiable parameters.The present study performed such an experimental analysis for a well-known type of rapid-acting perceptual adaptation: the adaptation produced by viewing the hand through a wedge prism (Rock, 1966). The resulting stimulus rearrangement can be represented as a remapping of eye positions on hand positions. Figure 1 illustrates this for the case of a base-right (BR) prism. To simplify the analysis, tests are confined

Fifty-six students in each of two groups heard an innocuous tone of constant interstimulus interval (lSI) repeatedly presented. Half the students were instructed to sit quietly and listen. whereas for half the students the tone was a signal in a reaction time experiment. The GSR was recorded continuously throughout the experiment. Following training with a constant lSI, the tone was presented in a temporal generalization test series with shorter and longer ISIs. Response speed manifested a symmetrical gradient of generalization on all generalization test series. The greater the change in lSI, the slower the response speed. On the first temporal generalization test, the GSR induced by the signal stimuli showed a symmetrical gradient, whereas generalization to nonsignificant stimuli was asymmetrical, with only longer ISIs showing increased GSR responsivity. Temporal generalization to the significant stimuli also developed an asymmetry after repeated training and generalization test series. These results suggest that the effects of novelty are at least in part dependent for their appearance upon the significance of the stimuli involved.

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