William Schoenfeld, P. Bersh & J. Netterman - Extinction of a Human Cardiac-Response During...

8/12/2019 William Schoenfeld, P. Bersh & J. Netterman - Extinction of a Human Cardiac-Response During Avoidance-Conditio

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Extinction of a Human Cardiac-Response during Avoidance-ConditioningAuthor(s): P. J. Bersh, J. M. Notterman and W. N. SchoenfeldSource: The American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 69, No. 2 (Jun., 1956), pp. 244-251Published by: University of Illinois PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1418153.

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EXTINCTION OF A HUMAN CARDIAC-RESPONSEDURINGAVOIDANCE-CONDITIONING

ByP. J. BERSH, umanFactorsLaboratory, omeAir DevelopmentCenter,Rome, N.Y., J. M. NOTTERMAN nd W. N. SCHOENFELD,ColumbiaUniversity

Sinceavoidance-conditioninglwaysinvolves, at least at the outset, theexposureof S to the negativelyreinforcing('noxious' or 'to-be-avoided')stimulus, t is now generallyrecognized hat the Pavlovianparadigm,withthe negativelyreinforcingstimulusacting as US, applies with significantconsequences.The joint occurrenceof autonomically-mediated Rs andthe instrumentalavoidance-responseRAV)raisesthe possibilityof interac-tion between the two response-systems,'and this possibility makes de-sirablethe simultaneousmeasurement nd studyof representative eflexesin both systems.One initial hypothesison which agreementmight presentlybe expectedis that the autonomicCRsacquiredduringavoidance-trainingend towardextinction on 'successful'avoidance-trialsi.e. trials on which the experi-mentallyprescribedRAVs made and US is not forthcoming), in accord-ance with the Pavlovianparadigm or extinction.Nevertheless,the litera-tureseems to containno dataindicating hat suchextinctionactuallyoccurs,and one purposeof the experimentsreportedhere is to furnishthat evi-dence.It will also appear hatthe weakeningof CRarisespartlyfrom thediscriminative ontrolover CR assumedby stimuli which areproducedby,or accompany,RAV, ndwhich thusplay the role of negativestimuliin thePavlovianmethodof contrasts.2

* Received or publicationMay 19, 1955. These studieswere supportedby fundsprovidedunderContractAF 18(600)-69 with the USAF Schoolof AviationMedi-cine,RandolphField,Texas.1W. N. Schoenfeldand J. J. Antonitis,A functionof respondentsn the extinc-tion of operantresponses,Notes, Conf.Exper.Anal. Behav.,No. 17, May9, 1949,issued from IndianaUniv. (mimeographed);Schoenfeld,An experimental pproachto anxiety, escape, and avoidancebehavior,in Anxiety, edited by P. H. HochandJosephZubin, 1950, 70-99; J. M. Notterman,Experimentalnxietyand a con-ditionedheartrate response n humanbeings,Trans.N. Y. Acad.Sci., Ser.II, 16,1953, 24-33.W. N. Schoenfeld,P. J. Bersh, and J. M. Notterman,Interactionof instru-mentaland autonomic esponsesn avoidance onditioning,Science,120, 1954, 788,(Abstract).

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EXTINCTION OF A HUMAN CARDIAC-RESPONSEEXPERIMENT I

The purpose of the experimentwas to comparethe magnitudeof acardiacCR after acquisitionof a motor avoidance-response ith CR-mag-nitudepriorto avoidance-training.

Procedure. In the first experiment, as well as in two others to be reported, theautonomic CR under observation was one previously studied by the authors as afunction of several parameters, i.e. the decrease in heart-rate produced in humanSs by repeated exposure to tone (CS) followed by electric shock (US).3 The samelaboratory arrangements, apparatus, and general procedure were employed as inthe previous studies cited. The cardiac CR was measured by comparing pre-CSheart-rate with rate during the CS-US interval, and a trace-conditioning procedurewas used, consisting of a 1-sec. tone, a 6-sec. tone-shock interval, and a 6-sec.shock. Additional particulars of procedure are given for each of the three experi-ments reported.

Twenty college students (men) served as Ss.4 There were three experimentalphases: (a) determination of basal (pre-conditioning) heart-rate response to thetone, (b) cardiac conditioning, (c) establishment of an avoidance-response (key-tapping). All phases were administered to each S in a single session lasting ap-proximately 2 hr.After S entered the laboratory, he was asked to strip to the waist, and thecardiograph and shock electrodes were placed. During these preparations, the fol-lowing instructions were given by E.

This is an experiment to determine your heart-rate reaction to tone, and yourheart-rate reaction to electric shock. You will hear a series of tones through thisheadset which will soon be placed over your ears. A little later in the experimentyou will receive a series of electric shocks administered to your left hand; you willnot be shocked through the electrodes I am now placing on your chest and leftleg. These electrodes enable me to record your heart action. The shocks you willreceive will be strong enough for you to feel them, but will not be strong enoughto do you any harm. Remember that they will just pass through your hand, andnot your body. Please try not to make any unnecessary movements. I will be keep-ing a continuous record of your heart-action while you are in here, and since theapparatus is necessarily very sensitive, your moving around too much would inter-fere with the recording.'3Notterman, Schoenfeld, and Bersh, Conditioned heart rate response in humanbeings during experimental anxiety, J. comp. physiol. Psychol., 45, 1952, 1-8;Partial reinforcement and conditioned heart rate response in human subjects, Science,115, 1952, 77-79; A comparison of three extinction procedures following heart rateconditioning, J. abnorm. soc. Psychol., 47, 1952, 674-677; Bersh, Schoenfeld, andNotterman, The effect upon heart rate conditioning of randomly varying the inter-val between conditioned and unconditioned stimuli, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 39, 1953,563-570.4 These Ss remained of an original group of 28. Three Ss were discarded for failure

to show the cardiac CR at all within the 8 trials set aside for acquisition (comparenumber of trials in earlier studies cited). Five Ss were discarded for failure to learnRAv to the given criterion (see Procedure ) before 17 shocks were administered.These shocks, together with those of acquisition, represented about the maximalnumber that Ss cared to endure during a single 2-hr. session.5Cf. the procedure and instructions of earlier studies cited.

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BERSH, NOTTERMAN, AND SCHOENFELDThen E left S's room and entered the adjacent apparatus room. The basal trialswere begun immediately thereafter. A series of 20 1-sec. tones, spaced irregularly1-2 min. apart, was sent through the headset, S's cardiogram being taken continu-

ously from about 30 sec. before to about 30 sec. after each tone. As in theprevious studies, rate was measured by determining the period of the last twocardiac cycles immediately preceding onset of tone, and the period of the lasttwo cycles in the 6-sec. interval following tone (and, therefore, immediately pre-ceding shock on the subsequent tone-shock trials). These measures, called the 'pre-tone' and 'post-tone' rates, respectively, were then converted to beats-per-min.

Following the basal series, cardiac conditioning was begun immediately for allSs without further instruction. This phase consisted of eight tone-shock trials. Itmay be noted here that the first occasion on which tone is followed by shock (Trial1 of cardiac conditioning) is, insofar as S's cardiac response to tone is con-cerned, another basal trial. It is only on the second trial of conditioning that anyconditioning effect to tone may be exhibited. For this reason, in the computationsand tables reported, the first trial of cardiac conditioning has been treated as thelast basal trial.

Upon conclusion of the eighth cardiac conditioning trial, all Ss were given thefollowing instructions.

From now on, if you tap this key once as soon as you hear the tone, and onceagain at a certain specific time-interval after the first tap, you will not receive theshock. You have to determine for yourself what the proper interval is between thetwo taps. Keep your hand near the key.These instructions were repeated a second time, after which a telegraph key wasput in position on the table near S's right hand. If, on the succeeding motor-

conditioning, S tapped the key for the second time during the fourth second aftertermination of CS, shock was not given at the conclusion of the usual 6-sec. trace-period. Motor-conditioning was considered achieved when S successfully avoidedshock on five consecutive trials (the criterion-trials) before receiving 17 shocks.During each trial of the motor-conditioning phase, heart-rate was recorded in theusual way (from 30 sec. before tone to 30 sec. after shock would normallyterminate).

Results. The cardiac measures are summarized in Table I. The differencebetween the mean pre-tone and post-tone rates during the basal phase is notsignificant.6 The effect of the conditioning trials is shown in the conditioneddecrement which is significantly greater than zero and also significantlygreater than the basal decrement (P


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EXTINCTION OF A HUMAN CARDIAC-RESPONSEend of acquisition(despite the increasein resistance o extinctionwhichpresumablyarises from the partial reinforcementschedule to which CRis exposed duringthe acquisitionof RAy).7 In brief, the conclusion ndi-cated by the data is that autonomically-mediated Rs involved in avoid-ancetrainingdo, in fact, tend to extinguish n the expectedmannerduringRAVrials.One possibleartifact o be considered n connectionwith this conclusionis the unconditionedeffectof RAV in this case,the tappingof a telegraphkey) upon the cardiac-measureemployed,since it is commonlyrecognizedthat skeletalresponses end to raisecardiac-rate. his effect,counteractingthe cardiacCR-drop,might have created the false impressionthat ex-tinction had occurred.That this artifact did not operate in the presentexperiment s indicatedby control datareportedelsewhere.8While the presentdata indicatethat the effectof RAyon CR is in theexpecteddirection,this effect is not large, since CR remainssignificantlyabove zero and above the basal level. Although many conditionsof theexperimentmight accountfor such a result, includingthe particularRAVcriterion nvolved,one likely basismaybe the 'externallyunsupported' a-ture of the temporally-discriminated AVused here. The possibility ofspeedingextinctionof the CR by providingan exteroceptive timulusas-sociatedwith, and marking,RAVhereforesuggestsitself. This possibilityled to the performance f Experiment I.

EXPERIMENTIThe purposeof this experimentwas to determinewhetheran exterocep-tive stimulus associatedwith an avoidance-responsenfluences the ex-tinction of the associatedcardiacCR.Procedure. Ten students (men) served as Ss.9 The procedure of this experimentwas identical with that of Experiment I, except that, immediately upon occurrenceof a 'successful' avoidance-response, E presented a signal-light of 1.5-sec. duration.The light was provided by a small lamp positioned on the wall in front of S and

approximately at eye-level. On trials during which S made an 'incorrect' key-tappingresponse, no light-signal was given. No mention was made of the light-stimulusduring the instructions or during any phase of the experiment.7Notterman, Schoenfeld, and Bersh, Partial reinforcement and conditioned heartrate response in human subjects, op. cit., 77-79.8Notterman, Experimental anxiety and a conditioned heart rate response inhuman beings, op. cit., 31; Notterman, Schoenfeld, and Bersh, A comparison ofthree extinction procedures following heart rate conditioning, op. cit., 676-677.9Two other Ss were eliminated from the experiment for failure to demonstratecardiac conditioning, and six for failure to attain the criterion of avoidance-con-ditioning criterion, within the number of trials allotted to each of these two phasesof the experiment.

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BERSH, NOTTERMAN, AND SCHOENFELDResults. The results of this experimentare summarized n Table I.As in the first experiment,the obtainedcardiacCR was significantwell

beyond the 1% level of confidenceat the end of acquisition.Althoughonly 10.5 trials (median) weretakenby thisgroupto reachthe avoidance-criterion (as comparedwith 16.0 in Experiment I)-possibly reflectingthe acquisitionof secondaryreinforcingpropertiesby the light-the dif-ference betweenthe two values is not significant.Duringthe RAvcriterion-TABLE I

MEAN CARDIACRESPONSEBEATSPER MIN.) DURINGEACHOFTHETHREEPHASESOPEXPERIMENTSANDII(Last ii basaldeterminations,ast 5 conditioningtrials,and5 RAV riterion rials)

Experiment Experiment IPhase Pre- Post- Diff. Pre- Post Diff.tone tone tone toneBasal 80.8 79.4 I.4 77.7 77.9 -0.2Conditioning 81.7 73.2 8.5* 78. 70.5 7.6*RAV riterion 80.o 75.0 5.0* 77.5 75.8 1.7* Significantbeyond the I% level of confidenceby Wilcoxon's test for pairedreplicates.Individualdatamaybe obtainedfromthe AmericanDocumentation nstitute.trials, strengthof cardiacCR had diminishedto a non-significantevel;moreover,9 of the 10 Ss (9/10 gives P


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EXTINCTION OF A HUMAN CARDIAC-RESPONSEEXPERIMENTII

The purposeof this experimentwas to ascertainhe unconditioned ffectupon cardiacrate of the exteroceptivestimulusof ExperimentII, and todeterminewhether that stimulus can assume discriminativecontrol overcardiacCR throughtraining by the method of contrasts.

Procedure.Eleven college students (men) servedas Ss, each being taken,in asingle sessionlasting about2.5 hr., throughthree consecutive xperimental hases:basal,acquisition,and discrimination-training.efore the start of the basalphase,and while the electrodeswere being attached,each S was given the same initialinstructionsas in Experiments and II. The basal phaseconsistedof 10 trials oftone-alone(T) and 10 trials of tone-light (TL), randomized eparately or eachS in such a manner hat the separateunconditioned ffect of T and TL upon heart-ratemightlaterbe evaluated.The tone lasted1 sec., the light 1.5 sec.; on TL trials,the light was presentedat the start of the fourthsecondafterthe tone. The acquisi-tion-phaseconsistedof eight positive trials (T+) in which tone was followed byshock,a procedure mployed o producea cardiacCR of some strengthbeforetheintroduction f contrastingunreinforcedrialsassociatedwith the negativestimulus.Since these trials followed basal trials without interruption,he first T+ trial wasconsidered a basal trial; similarly, the first discrimination-trialwas consideredanotheracquisition rial, 42 discrimination-trialseing given in all. The discrimina-tion-phraseconsistedof positive (T+) and negative (TL-) trials, duplicating hestimulus-shock orrelations f ExperimentI, with 7 T+trialsrandomlynterspersedamong the first 15 TL- trials, 4 T+ trials randomly nterspersedamongthe last15 TL- trials, and with the last trial being positive (T+) for all Ss. On all T+trials, the time-relationswere the same as in the previous experiments(a 6-sec.shock administered sec. afterthe end of the tone). On TL- trials,the samelightand arrangements ere used as in ExperimentI. The key used for RAvn the twoearlierexperimentswas not presentfor this experiment, inceno RAVwas involved.

Results. The data indicate that the unconditionedeffect of TL duringbasal trials was to decelerateheart-ratesignificantly.Thus, the pre-tonemeanof the last 5 basal trialsof 'tone-alone'was 75.2, the post-tonemeanwas 73.3, and the differenceof 1.9 was, as usualin all previouswork,non-significant.The pre-tonemean of the last 5 basal trialsof tone-lightwas75.2, the post-tonemean was 72.1, and the differenceof 3.1 was signif-icant beyond the 1% level of confidence.l1This unconditionedcardiac-deceleration to TL is, of course, in the opposite directionto its effectupon cardiacCRin Experiment I, and strengthens he conclusion hat theconsequence f addingthe light to RAv n Experiment I was not an artifactbut a genuine speedingof cardiacextinction.The conclusionthat the morerapidextinction n Experiment I resulted

1E. J. G. Pitman, Notes on Non-Parametric Statistical Inference, DepartmentMathematicaltatistics,ColumbiaUniv., 1948.

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BERSH, NOTTERMAN, AND SCHOENFELDfrom the discriminativeaction of the light receives furtherconfirmationfrom the dataof Fig. 1 which shows the cardiacresponseto T+and TL-during the discrimination-training. he values plotted are averages forevery two sequentialT+ trials and for every block of five sequentialTL-trials,reflecting he 2:5 ratioof frequenciesof the two presentations.The

TONE-LIGHT(-) TRIALS0 o 1-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21-25 26-30

9O -oT LT+87

Z __0z6a 5-

2 3-4 -6 7-8 9-10 11-12

TONE(+) TRIALSFIG. 1. DISCRIMINATIVECONTROLOVERA CARDIACCR ESTABLISHED Y THEMETHOD OF CONTRASTS N EXPERIMENTIII.

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EXTINCTION OF A HUMAN CARDIAC-RESPONSE 251

eventuallytends to producecardiacacceleration.There seems little doubt,in view of these findings, that discriminative ontrolby an exteroceptivestimulusover the cardiacCR is possible, and, consequently, hat the lightaccompanyingRAy in ExperimentII might have, as arguedthere, servedthis added discriminativeunction.SUMMARY

Three experimentswere performedon the effect of avoidance-trainingon a conditionedcardiac-responsen human Ss. In ExperimentI it wasshown that the cardiacCR tends toward extinctionduringthe courseofavoidance-responding.n ExperimentII it was shown that extinction isfasterwhen an exteroceptive ignallingstimulus s correlatedwith success-ful avoidance-responses.n Experiment II it was shown thatthe effective-ness of such signallingmaybe ascribed o the developmentof discrimina-tive controlover the cardiacCR.

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