Effects of Momentary Changes in Arousal on Discriminative Autonomic Classical Conditioning

Relative to an intermediate arousal level, effects of stimulus‐controlled increases and decreases in arousal were examined during discriminative autonomic conditioning. After matching subjects to psychophysiologically‐indexed arousal criteria, three experimental and two control groups of 14 persons each were formed. Experimental groups received both high arousal training consisting of aversive conditioning with a discrete stimulus and low arousal training involving paired presentations of muscle biofeedback relaxation and a different cue. Formation of stimulus controlled arousal responses was assessed using heart rate, muscle, and electrodermal criteria. During discriminative conditioning, one experimental group received all conditioned stimuli compounded with high arousal cues, while another group received conditioned stimuli/low arousal cue compounds. The third experimental group received conditioned stimuli/neutral cue compounds. Electrodermal and digital pulse volume conditioning data indicated significantly greater conditioning associated with neutral cue manipulations. High arousal cue compounds resulted in conditioning superior to that displayed by low arousal cue compounds. Control groups data suggested that results were not due to simple transfer or physical cue properties alone.