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In two studies, we investigated the influence of aversive and nonaversive reinforcers on startle reactivity, visceral responses, and self-report during Pavlovian conditioning. Furthermore, we assessed how awareness of the stimulus contingencies affect conditioned discrimination in the different response systems. Conditioned potentiation of the startle response was only observed in the context of aversive learning. Moreover, blink potentiation occurred without awareness of the relationship between the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus. In contrast, skin conductance conditioning was independent of the aversiveness of the reinforcer and was only obtained for those individuals who could correctly verbalize the stimulus contingency in a postconditioning recognition test. Cardiac responses varied with the task demands of the situation and covaried with individual response stereotypes.

22 believers and 20 skeptics of extrasensory perception (ESP) participated in a telepathy experiment. Subjects were asked to judge the covariation between transmitted symbols and the corresponding feedback given by a receiver. Believers overestimated the number of successful transmissions ('hits'). Skeptics were characterized by accurate hit judgments. For believers, positive correlations between hit-responses, their heart rates, and their experienced arousal were found. In addition, subjective arousal was positively associated with the hit estimates given at the end of the experiment. This response pattern was absent in the group of skeptics. It is concluded that covariation bias as a psychophysiological concept plays an important role in the maintenance of paranormal belief.

During the last two decades, research on interoception has experienced a surprising renaissance. New experimental approaches and methods have revealed much about the processing of afferent signals from the inner organs of the body, and have allowed more accurate descriptions of these processes, as well as a more accurate determination of their functional significance in the experience and behavior of humans. Besides neuromuscular, respiratory, and gastrointestinal interoceptive processes, the cardiovascular afferent influences are now known to be very important. Invariably, the central questions concern sensitivity to signals from the body, factors which may influence judgement of perception, and the degree to which conventional hypotheses regarding the interoceptive capabilities of humans may require revision. Findings from general psychological and clinical studies have shown that humans may attain remarkable levels of interoceptive performance. On the other hand, they also show how deep the chasm is between visceral processes and perception, and between that which is perceived and the reports thereof. Only interdisciplinary approaches to these complex processes promise success.

The present study was carried out to determine the inhibitory cortical processes induced by changes in hemodynamics. Previous experiments in humans conducted in our laboratory have shown that there is a close relationship between posture and delta and theta EEG activity. The most pronounced effects were obtained during the 6 degrees head-down tilt (HDT) position. In space medicine the HDT procedure is very frequently employed to simulate micro-gravity and to determine the neurohormonal counter-regulations evoked by the expansion of central volume. Twenty male subjects spent 23 h in bed in 6 degrees HDT and 23 h in 6 degrees HUT (head-up tilt) positions during which EEG (frontal, central, parietal, occipital), startle responses, and reaction-times were measured every 2 h (from 10:00 h till 20:00 h). The effects of cardiovascular deconditioning (CD) regularly occurring after HDT were assessed by examining orthostatic tolerance and the physical work capacity (bicycle ergometry). As expected, 23 h HDT led to more pronounced CD than HUT. Spectral power analyses of EEG revealed increases in delta and theta frequency hands similar to those found during HDT in previous EEG studies. In addition, subjects responded more slowly (S1-S2 reaction-time task) during HDT as compared with HUT bedrest. The influence of HDT on startle response, however, was not in keeping with the initial hypothesis (i.e. dampening of reflex activity). The EEG data and the sensorimotor performance indicated that the body fluid shift towards the thoracic cavity induced by HDT resulted in signs of cortical inhibition. In addition to neural mechanisms, other processes must be postulated which are closely related to the counter-regulation evoked by the varying body positions.

We tested the hypothesis that psychological stress testing in the clinical laboratory provokes changes in the sympathetic and vagal activities regulating heart rate that can be assessed noninvasively using spectral analysis of RR variability. To account for the effects on respiration produced by talking, this study was performed with two different procedures: the I.K.T. (i.e., a computer-controlled mental task that is performed in silence and does not entail human confrontation) and a stressful interview. Finally, we assessed whether ischemic heart disease modifies the spectral changes induced by psychological stress by comparing a group of healthy subjects (age, 38 +/- 2 years) with a group of patients (age, 52 +/- 3 years) recovering from 1-month-old myocardial infarctions. The findings indicate that psychological stress induced marked changes in the sympathovagal balance, which moved toward sympathetic predominance. The low-frequency component of RR variability, a marker of sympathetic activity, increased from 58 +/- 5 normalized units (NU) to 68 +/- 3 NU with the I.K.T. and to 76 +/- 3 NU with the interview. This increase was absent in the group of post-myocardial infarction patients. However, arterial pressure increased significantly in both groups of subjects. The possibility of age playing an important role in determining the differences observed was disproved by the findings of a marked increase in low frequency with mental stimuli in an additional group of borderline hypertensive subjects with ages (55 +/- 2 years) comparable to those of post-myocardial infarction patients.

Nonaversive unconditional stimuli (USs) are seldom used in human classic conditioning of autonomic responses. One major objection to their use is that they produce deficits in electrodermal (ED) second- and third-interval response conditioning. However, a nonaversive reaction time (RT) task that includes feedback of success has been shown to be an effective US while avoiding this disadvantage (Lipp and Vaitl 1988). The present study compared this new RT task (RT-new) with a traditional RT task (RT-old) and with a standard aversive US (shock) in differential classic conditioning of ED, heart rate (HR), and digital pulse volume (DPV) responses. Eight-second-delay differential conditioning was applied in three groups of 12 subjects each. Simple geometric features (square, cross) displayed on a television screen served as conditional stimuli (CS+ and CS-). In acquisition, there were no statistically significant differences among the groups; differential conditioning did occur in HR, first- and second-interval ED responses, and first-interval DPV responses. Separate analyses within each group, however, revealed that there was no second-interval ED conditioning in the RT-old group. During extinction, neither DPV nor second-interval ED conditioning could be obtained, whereas HR and first-interval ED conditioning occurred in each group. In third-interval omission ED responses, RT-old and shock groups exhibited extinction, while response differentiation was maintained in the RT-new group throughout extinction. The RT task including feedback proved to be as reliable a US as a standard aversive US, whereas application of a traditional RT task again yielded some weaknesses in second-interval ED conditioning.

Twenty-three subjects rated the belongingness of pairs of conditionable (photographic slides) and unconditioned (e.g., shock, tone, human scream) stimuli. Forty new subjects were then classically conditioned, using rating-defined high (angry face/scream) and low (landscape/scream) belongingness pairs. Finger-pulse responses to the high-belongingness pairs showed superior acquisition and resistance to extinction. Another 40 subjects were conditioned to compound stimuli: a slide (either landscape or angry face) that was the same over trials, and a yellow or blue background that was the discriminant cue for the unconditioned stimulus (scream). When the angry face (the high-belongingness slide) was the invariant part of the compound, relatively poorer differential pulse-volume and skin-conductance conditioning was observed. Thus, depending on the task, a priori belongingness rendered stimuli selectively conditionable, either enhancing or inhibiting visceral response associations.

The present study was conducted to demonstrate classic conditioning in electrodermal (ED) and heart rate (HR) responses by using a nonaversive reaction time (RT) task as unconditional stimulus (US). Three groups of 12 subjects each were studied to test the efficacy of this US procedure by varying the essential components of the RT task-US between groups. Eight seconds differential delay conditioning was applied in each group. Simple geometric features (square, cross) displayed on a TV screen were used as CS+ and CS-. RT task consisted of a nonaversive tone (72 dBA, 1000 or 1200 Hz) and a motor response (pressing a button with the left index finger). Subjects were asked to respond as soon as the tone stimulus was presented. The three groups received different stimulus sequences during the 16-trial acquisition phase only. In one group (Group C1), CS+ was followed by a tone to which subjects were to respond, whereas CS- was not followed by a tone. Similarly, in a second group (Group H), CS+ was followed by a tone, whereas CS- was not; however, subjects of Group H (habituation group) were not required to respond to the tone. In a third group, (Group C2) CS+ was followed by a tone to which subjects were to respond, while CS- was followed by a different tone requiring no response. According to analysis of Group C1 data, differential conditioning was obtained in each response measure. Group H displayed habituation in each response measure obtained. In Group C2, differential conditioning was obtained in the second latency window of ED responses only.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

An experiment with 42 human Ss used the transswitching procedure to examine tonic stimulus control of phasic and tonic conditioned vasomotor heart rate, and electrodermal reactions. The conditional stimulus (CSs) were photos of angry and friendly human faces, and the unconditional stimulus (US) was a human scream. In one tonic context (blue light), the CSs were paired with the US, in the other context (yellow light), the CSs were presented unpaired. Following acquisition, an extinction series was run with the US omitted during both tonic contexts. Phasic vasomotor and skin conductance reactions differed in the positive and negative tonic segments (stronger in positive). The skin conductance responses also differed during extinction, but the vasomotor responses did not. Tonic differences (following onset of the tonic stimuli) in unelicited skin conductance response frequency, finger pulse volume, and heart rate were also found, although these developed more slowly than the phasic differences. The finger pulse volume tonic difference was greater in extinction than the skin conductance response frequency. There was no effect of the angry-friendly facial expressions, either directly or in interaction with the transswitching effects. The results were interpreted to mean that the transswitching phenomenon is not limited to one another autonomic effector, but is more generalized across the ANS (sympathetic branch). The absence of influence of the facial expressions indicates the relative weakness of the "preparedness" hypothesis in comparison with more influential contextual factors.