Two experiments investigated the acquisition, generalization, and extinction of the galvanic skin response (GSR) and digital vasomotor response to words under conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus (CS-UCS) intervals of . 5, 5.5, 10.5, 15.5, and 20.5 sec. Experiment 1 used a forewarned reaction time situation with an innocuous tone as the imperative stimulus, whereas Experiment 2 used a noxious 110 dB white noise as the UCS. Differential conditioning of the GSR occurred under all intervals in both experiments. The most effective differential conditioning of the GSR appeared to occur with the short intervals, whereas the most effective conditioning of the vasomotor response appeared to occur under the longer intervals. Results from Experiment 1 clearly demonstrate that it is possible to study the acquisition of differential conditioning using an innocuous UCS. Similar results were obtained in Experiment 2.Comparisons between short and long CS-UCS intervals during extinction raise the problem of whether different kinds of responses are being compared under these two kinds of intervals. The short intervals may induce orienting reflexes in extinction due to the omission of the UCS from the CS-UCS stimulus complex. These responses are compared with anticipatory conditioned responses in the longer CS-UCS intervals that are uncontaminated by the omission of the UCS. In Experiment 2, the responses to the control words differed significantly as a function of CS-UCS interval, with the .5-sec interval producing the largest responses to the control words. Thus, a procedure is available for studying short and long CS-UCS intervals without the confounding of intervals with changes in the CS-UCS stimulus complex produced by test or extinction trials.

The galvanic skin response was obtained from 36 college students in a differential semantic conditioning and generalization situation in which different groups were instructed to perform a pedal response whenever they heard a tone, covertly free associate whenever they heard a tone, or sit quietly and listen to words and tones.

No abstract

No abstract

ABSTRACT. Mirror mediated object discrimination was investigated in a captive female, humanreared, western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) approximately 26 years of age. The gorilla was trained to find a stimulus that was only visible by use of the mirror. The gorilla could not reach the goal object except by observing it in the mirror and her hand movement was not visible through the mirror. Further, it was hypothesized that this mirror mediated object discrimination would enhance the probability of self-directed behavior. GALLUP'S (1970) marking paradigm, excluding the use of general anesthesia, was utilized in assessing self-directed behavior. Mirror-gazing, face-directed, and mark-directed behavior with a mirror were compared before versus after discrimination mirror training. The results supported the hypotheses that gorillas are capable of mirror mediated object discrimination and that mirror training involving a discrimination task would facilitate self-directed behavior.