Conditioning as emotional sensitization and differentiation

The purpose of the present research was to study certain cardiovascular aspects of motor learning in a conditioning situation where the motor conditional reflex (cr) could be contrasted with the associated cardiac changes at various stages of the development of both responses. The operational aim of the research was the study of the latency and the amplitude of the cardiac and motor responses to stimuli signalizing different intensities of electrical stimulation. This is an extension of the work originally done in this laboratory relating the quantity of food reinforcement to the size of conditional and unconditional salivary reflexes. Pavlovian methodology was employed. Four dogs, one to two years old, two male and two female, served as subjects. Leg movements and respiration were recorded by kymograph, and heart rate (HR) by a cardiograph. General behavior was observed through a one-way screen. It has long been recognized that the conditioning of a specific reflex, such as the leg-withdrawal reaction, results in the conditioning of the whole organism. The data of this monograph support this principle: the differentiated motor cr is accompanied by a differentiated HR. This research has shown that the principles that have been developed for salivary and motor conditioning are also applicable to HR. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)