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Imaginational Pavlovian Conditioning of Large‐Magnitude Cardiac Decelerations with Tilt as US

1978; Wiley; Volume: 15; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1469-8986.1978.tb03106.x

1469-8986

John J. Furedy, Felix Klajner,

Neural dynamics and brain function

ABSTRACT Conventional operant biofeedback methods have not generally been successful in producing large‐magnitude cardiac decelerations, whereas a Pavlovian approach using negative body tilt as an unconventional unconditional stimulus (US) has been reported to yield more promising results. The two experiments reported here employed this powerful (elicits decelerations of 35 bpm) new US in an “imaginational” form of Pavlovian conditioning wherein the conditional stimulus (CS), rather than being a conventional and simple one (e.g., tone or light), was the following complex event: the word “drop” to which the subject was instructed to drop his head back, imagine the US, and, to help this imaginational process, to roll his eyes back. In Exp. I this complex CS was temporarily paired with the US at a .5‐sec CS‐US interval for 12 Experimentals, whereas for 12 Controls the same complex CS followed the US by 17 sec in a long backward‐control arrangement. The CS in the Experimentals yielded some 10 bpm decelerative responses relative to the 4‐bpm levels of the Controls, and during extinction (US omitted) the Experimentals' decelerations returned to the 4‐bpm level of the Controls. Exp. II assessed the possible contribution of the various motoric aspects of the complex “drop” CS by presenting 10 subjects with the same “drop” CSs, but omitting both the associated tilt USs and instructions to imagine the tilt. With these omitted, the “drop” CS produced no significant decelerations. Finally, a significant Experimental‐Control difference in Exp. I indicated that the deceleration training shows generalization or transfer to a situation where the subject is sitting up in a normal position rather than lying on the tilt table.