The Onset of Contingency Awareness and Electrodermal Classical Conditioning: An Analysis of Temporal Relationships during Acquisition and Extinction

The temporal relationship between the onset of contingency awareness and the onset of discrimination classical conditioning of the skin conductance response was evaluated. Awareness of the CS-UCS contingencies and skin conductance responses were measured trial-by-trial from 60 college student subjects during both acquisition and extinction. In addition, the conditioning paradigm was embedded within a masking task in order to delay the onset of awareness so that preaware and postaware trials could be analyzed. Two skin conductance responses were measured, a short latency first interval response (FIR) and a longer latency second interval response (SIR). Results showed that: 1) the onset of FIR discrimination conditioning began only after subjects indicated awareness of both the positive (CS+) and the negative (CS?) contingencies, 2) concurrent with the onset of this awareness, a) FIR discrimination increased suddenly due to increased responding to CS+ while b) SIR discrimination also increased suddenly for some subjects but gradually developed for others, 3) FIR extinction occurred only among subjects who exhibited expectancy extinction, and was due to decreased responding to CS+. The results are consistent with the interpretation that FIR discrimination is related to the cognitive processing of the CSs’significance, and that SIR discrimination is related to an individual difference variable which was reflected in the rate at which subjects became aware.