Propositional and response processes as distinguishable and equally important aspects of conditioning: some clarifications

Martin and Levey's (1988) commentary on our 1987 chapter points to the need for clearer definition of terms and much more open debate in the area of learning and conditioning. While raising some good points for further discussion, their characterisation of some issues appears to be based on a number of misinterpretations and misrepresentations of our position, and we attempt here to correct these functions. Issues which we regard as misinterpreted are those of truth value as a criterion of the cognitive, the epistemological status of a cognition as opposed to the object of the cognition, and the nature of propositional versus non-propositional learning theories. Issues which are misrepresented are those of our position on the nature of conditioning (which is called cognitive by Martin and Levey, but which is, in fact, a dual-process view), formal versus content-oriented distinctions, and the nature of human and non-human learning processes. Despite these differences between Martin and Levey and ourselves, it is apparent that such debates are necessary for furthering our understanding of the complexity and multiplicity of the processes involved in learning.     

Effects of respiratory depth and rate on HR and TWA: an indirect assessment of the respiratory confound in cognitive task difficulty manipulations

Manipulations of respiration depth and rate were performed in order to observe their effects on HR and TWA. The shallow breathing conditions were considered respiratorily similar to the conditions existing during the performance of an iterative subtraction task. Although significant HR increases and TWA decreases were noted in the deep breathing conditions, the changes in the shallow conditions were not of sufficient magnitude to account for the HR increases and TWA decreases which have been observed during the performance of subtraction tasks. Therefore it appears that respiratory confounds are not responsible for the effects that have been observed in previous studies.     

Effects of electrode placement on direction of T-wave amplitude changes in psychophysiological studies

Psychophysiological studies, which measure small changes in T-wave amplitude (TWA) induced by behavioral manipulations, usually employ a single electrode placement for obtaining the ECG. The present study varied electrode placement (EP) within subjects among three EPs that have been reported in the literature (a lead-II limb placement, and two chest placements) to determine whether, as has been claimed, the direction of TWA changes can be changed by varying EP. Both HR and TWA were monitored in 24 males during the Baseline, Listen, and Task phases of an iterative subtraction task. The EP variation did not affect the direction of TWA change. Reliable TWA attenuation accompanied by HR acceleration was observed in all leads.     

On the role of orienting reaction recovery in short-interval classical autonomic consitioning

For a closer analysis of what has been characterized as the ‘dilemma concerning the tole of orienting reaction recovery (ORR) in short-interval human classical autonomic conditioning, it is necessary to distinguish between two related but different positions. The reducibility thesis appears to assert that all such conditioning phenomena can be fully accounted for in terms of ORR, while the methodological confound position maintains only that conditioning and orienting factors may be confounded. The reducibility thesis is shown to have a readily testable, and empirically false, consequence. The methodologicalconfound position, which is less vulnerable to empirical test than the reducibility thesis, can nevertheless be subjected to an analytic, though indirect, empirical evaluation. That evaluation indicates that ORR is not a robust effect under conditions similar to those of short-interval conditioning and that no ORR study has been performed under conditions that really parallel those of short-interval conditioning in terms of instructions, interstimulus interval, and ratio of charge to repetition trials. The methodological-confound position, while pointing to a conceivable source of confounding, has no empirical basis for its validity under the appropriate experimental requirements. It is concluded, therefore, that analysis of current evidence indicates ORR's role in short-interval autonomic conditioning to be negligible. The ORR ‘dilemma’ appears to have only logical, but little empirical, force.     

On the Utility of T-Wave Amplitude: A Reply to Schwartz and Weiss

Although Schwartz and Weiss's (1983) paper purports to be a response to Furedy and Heslegrave (1983), it does not address the central thesis of that the paper: that the recent criticisms of the T-wave amplitude (TWA) index of sympathetic activity were invalid. Instead, Schwartz and Weiss (1983) prefer to raise further criticisms concerning the validity of the TWA index. In this reply, we provide some clarifications and evaluations of these further points. Our conclusion remains that these further criticisms are insufficient to support abandoning TWA, and that rather the available evidence supports continuing the critical appraisal of TWA along with other candidate sympathetic indices.     

Intuitive and factual approaches in the comparison of contractility and repolarization measures of sympathetic myocardial activity

Obrist (Cardiovascular Psychophysiology: A Perspective, Plenum Press, New York, 1981) has recently argued for the superiority of contractility (e.g. pulse transit time) over ventricular repolarization (e.g. T-wave amplitude) measures as indices of sympathetic myocardial influences on the grounds that the T-wave occurs during the diastolic portion of the cardiac cycle (in contrast to the systolic temporal locus of contractile-based measures). This note suggests that this argument is intuitively rather than factually based because it lacks both logical and empirical validity.     

Individual Differences in Phasic Cardiac Reactivity to Psychological Stress and the Law of Initial Value

The validity of the law of initial value (LIV), which predicts relationships between prestimulus level and phasic response, was evaluated for two cardiac measures, heart rate (HR) and electrocardiographic T-wave amplitude (TWA). HR acceleration and TWA attenuation were produced in undergraduates by the performance of the backward digit span task. The between-subjects correlations of prestimulus level with the magnitude of the phasic responses were significant, with signs opposite to that which would be predicted by the LIV. The within-subjects prestimulus level-phasic response correlations, however, were consistent with the LIV. It appears that individual differences in psychologically-elicited phasic cardiac reactivity negate LIV predictions. These results emphasize the importance of sharply distinguishing the between- vs. within-subjects formulations of the LIV, and are contrary to recent psychophysiology textbook accounts of the prestimulus level-phasic response relationship for cardiac variables.     

Patient access to medical records on a psychiatric inpatient unit.

The authors studied the effects of patient access to medical records during hospitalization in a psychiatric unit of a community general hospital. Questionnaires were completed by about 20 staff and 88 patients, and records were compared with those from an earlier period to note any changes in the written record. Patients reported feeling better informed and more involved in their treatment, and staff said that they became more thoughtful about their notes in the chart. The availability of staff seems crucial to this process and facilitates the working alliance.     

Interrelationships Between Human Classical Differential Electrodermal Conditioning, Orienting Reaction, Responsivity, and Awareness of Stimulus Contingencies

The main purpose of studying the interrelationships listed in the title was to examine the orienting-reaction (OR) and cognitive (awareness) interpretations of differential electrodermal conditioning (DEC). The method was to perform correlational analyses on the data obtained from three DEC experiments (N = 32, 40, and 32, respectively) which together provided variations in such factors as the CS-US interval, and the sensitivity of the awareness measure of subjective contingency (SC). Following Zeiner and Schell (1971), the OR and responsivity measures were obtained, respectively, from preliminary CS+ trials (tone and light) to-be-paired with the US and from US (shock) trials. The results clearly disconfirmed the cognitive interpretation, since SC was not correlated either with DEC or with OR in any of the experiments. The OR interpretation received some support, but could handle the following aspects of the results only with difficulty: (a) some significant correlations of responsivity with DEC; (b) the fact that the apparently large OR-DEC correlations were reduced when statistical control (through partial correlations) was imposed for the influence of consistent individual differences in responding to the CS+ and CS- stimuli before any conditioning had taken place; (c) the fact that when these individual differences were not significantly present (in Exp. III), the OR-DEC correlation was also not significant. It was noted that the first aspect supported an S-R, contiguity-reinforcement account of DEC, an account which differs from the cognitive and OR interpretations inasmuch as it does not attempt to reduce DEC to some other process.     

Phasic Cardiac Reactivity to Psychological Stress as a Function of Aerobic Fitness Level

Cardiovascular adjustments to physical exertion are known to be affected by aerobic fitness level. This raises the possibility that the cardiovascular responses associated with psychological stress may also be related to aerobic fitness. This study was undertaken to determine if phasic cardiac reactivity to stress would be affected by aerobic fitness level, and to make inferences regarding the autonomic mechanisms which might mediate such an effect. Twenty-four males were given a standard physical fitness test and then divided into high and low aerobic fitness level groups. Within two weeks of this assessment, the heart rate and electrocardiographic T-wave amplitude responses of these subjects were monitored during the performance of hard and easy versions of a mental arithmetic task. Analysis of the heart rate data revealed no aerobic fitness level effect. There was, however, greater T-wave amplitude attenuation in the low as compared to the high aerobic fitness level group on hard trials. This pattern of results suggests that psychologically-elicited sympathetic cardiac reactivity is reduced by enhanced aerobic fitness level.