H. D. Kimmel

Positive and negative patterning in human classical skin conductance response conditioning

Three experiments on classical differential conditioning of the human skin conductance response to elemental and compound stimuli are reported. Subjects in Experiment 1 received both positive and negative patterning training, followed by either positive or negative patterning transfer tests on new stimuli. In positive patterning, a compound of two stimuli is reinforced and its elements are nonreinforced. In negative patterning, the elements are reinforced and the compound is nonreinforced. Subjects in Experiments 2 and 3 received either positive or negative patterning during training, followed by transfer tests on new stimuli. In Experiment 2, the transfer series began with new elements, after which their compound was presented; in Experiment 3, the new compound was presented first in the transfer series, and then the separate elements were administered. All three experiments provided evidence of the acquisition of positive patterning, while negative patterning was found only in Experiments 2 and 3. Positive patterning transferred to new stimuli, indicating that it was not attributable solely to summation of sub-threshold excitation conditioned to the elements on reinforced compound trials. This finding, coupled with the negative patterning found in Experiments 2 and 3, provided support for the unique cue hypothesis. It was concluded that the assumed unique cue constituted a learned “rule,” and that the actual elemental stimuli were neither perceptually nor otherwise modified during the conditioning process.

An instrumental conditioning method for the treatment of enuresis

Abstract A method is described for treating nocturnal enuresis. Contrary to conventional practice, the child is encouraged to drink liquids freely at any hour and rewards are used to establish increasingly long periods of retention of liquid in the bladder. In 3 cases in which this method was used, complete cessation of nocturnal bedwetting was achieved within approximately 1 week from the beginning of treatment. Prior to treatment, each of the 3 cases had records of almost daily bedwetting. Following treatment, none of the cases showed more than a single failure during a 1-year follow-up. The method is also promising because it may be implemented in the home by the parent, with little special training.

An Item Response Theory Evaluation of an English Version of the Trier Personality Inventory (TPI)

The measurement equivalence of an English-language version of the Trier Personality Inventory (TPI) was evaluated, using statistical methods based on item response theory (IRT) to identity items that displayed differential item functioning (DIF). In Study 1, the TPI was administered to 295 American and 213 West German subjects. From among the 120 items tested, 11 DIF items were detected. A follow-up study using a new sample of 203 Americans was conducted to replicate the original study and to evaluate the post hoc explanation that translation error was the source of DIF for one item. DIF was replicated for 6 of the 11 DIF items found in Study 1, and DIF was eliminated for one item by retranslation. Overall, there was significant agreement between the DIF indexes found in Studies I and 2 for all 120 items analyzed. Some problems in replicating significant indexes of DIF are discussed.

Further study of diurnal instrumental conditioning in the treatment of enuresis nocturna

Abstract Prolongation of retention of urine was rewarded during waking hours in 31 enuretic children who had never experienced a dry night. Training continued until a 45 min prolongation was attained. Training took 20 days, and the children were followed up 3 months later. Fifteen of them were completely free of enuresis and eight more showed significant improvement. The result was judged especially impressive as the treatment was administered by parents with only 2 hr of training by the experimenter. Possible applications of the method to other behavioral problems involving autonomic mediation are suggested.

Habituation and dishabituation of the human orienting reflex under instruction-induced stress

Twenty subjects received habituation trials with a 1000-Hz tone until two consecutive non-responses (skin conductance response) occurred. Then a single, novel 1400-Hz tone was administered, followed by another presentation of the 1000-Hz tone. Half the subjects were told that an intelligence test would follow. All of the subjects were initially given the STAI trait anxiety test. The 10 subjects told to expect an intelligence test needed significantly more trials to habituate and made significantly larger SCRs to the novel stimulus than did the other 10 subjects. Trait anxiety neither interacted with these effects nor had any effects of its own. The absence of trait anxiety effects was interpreted as being in disagreement with Spielberger’s assertions regarding trait and state anxiety.

The effect of UCS intensity in classical and avoidance GSR conditioning

This study compared GSR avoidance and yoked-control conditioning procedures. Classical conditioning at two UCS intensities was followed by extinction and, two months later, by an avoidance session. Matching of Ss was based on GSR responsiveness and classical conditioning in the first session.The strong UCS led to more rapid reduction in CR latency (due to an increase in number of Ss responding) in the first session, and there was a tendency for maximum CR magnitude to occur in fewer trials with the strong UCS. No UCS-intensity difference in level of responding to the CS or UCS was found in the first session. A greater amount of spontaneous recovery in the second session was found in the strong UCS group. The avoidance and yoked control groups did not differ in CR magnitudes, latencies, or frequencies, nor in UCR magnitudes in the second session. They did differ significantly in the rate of decline in intertriai responses, the decline being more rapid in the avoidance condition.

The interactive effects of request form and speaker status on judgments of requests

The interactive effects of request form and speaker status on judgments of requests were investigated in a laboratory study of metapragmatics. College students (N=132) read scenarios in which speakers made requests of them. Speakers were higher in status, peers, or lower in status than the subjects, and the requests were imperatives with semantic aggravators, embedded imperatives, or permission directives with semantic softeners. Subjects rated the speakers with respect to how rude/polite, humble/arrogant, and powerful/weak they were being. Significant interactions were obtained for the first two ratings, indicating that the speaker status effect was stronger with permission directives than with the other requests. These findings suggest that listeners view unexpectedly indirect requests as more impolite and sarcastic than requests used in other situations and, more generally, that language meaning is a function of both form and context.

Further investigations of stimulus coding in nonlinear discrimination problems

Two human Pavlovian SCR conditioning experiments are reported, investigating CS-coding in negative patterning (NP). In Experiment 1, NP was run with two pairs of letter stimuli (C, N, and M, J), reinforced by shock when alone but not in compound. Controls with the same paired-unpaired sequence saw two additional nonreinforced letters (X and H) instead of compounds. The NP group learned the element-compound differentiation, but the controls did not discriminate reinforced from nonreinforced letters. The availability of an abstract rule (such as stimulus number) for distinguishing between reinforced and nonreinforced CSs led to discrimination in NP, but its unavailability resulted in no discrimination in the controls. In Experiment 2, NP was run with one pair of letters (reinforced as elements but not in compound). A control group had the same paired-unpaired sequence, but their compound contained two different letters from the reinforced ones. The NP discrimination was learned, but the controls failed to differentiate the reinforced elements from the nonreinforced compound. It was concluded that the NP discrimination was not based on the number of reinforced and nonreinforced stimuli, because this dimension was available to both groups in Experiment 2. The abstract dimension of separate versus together, on the other hand, was available only in NP, suggesting that it is the SINE QUA NON for the acquisition of the kind of NP discriminations we have been studying.

RWMODEL: A program in Turbo Pascal for simulating predictions based on the Rescorla-Wagner model of classical conditioning

A Turbo Pascal computer program is described that simulates the Rescorla-Wagner model of classical conditioning. The menu-driven program makes it possible to compute associative strengths for differential conditioning, conditioned inhibition, compound and contextual conditionings, trans-switching, and other designs.

Instrumental electrodermal conditioning in the monkey (Cebus albifrons): Acquisition and long-term retention

EightCebus albifrons monkeys received 25 sessions of discriminative operant conditioning of the skin conductance response (SCR), with colored lights as discriminative stimuli and with Sidman avoidance (SS-40 sec, RS-40 sec) scheduled during one light and response-contingent shock during the other, Discriminative stimulus segments were separated by 30-sec periods of time-out from shocks and lights, Two extinction sessions were run 3 months after training, Almost from the beginning of conditioning, the monkeys made significantly more unelicited skin conductance responses in the avoidance periods than in punishment, The monkeys’ heart rates also increased significantly, but there was no difference between avoidance and punishment, SCR frequency during extinction continued to differentiate significantly between avoidance and punishment, and there was a significant increase in this differentiation from the last conditioning session to the first extinction session, but the difference then reduced in the second session, The results indicated that monkey’s SCRs are influenced by instrumental reinforcement contingencies somewhat in the same fashion as those of humans.