A comparative study of acquisition of conditioned response between delayed and trace conditioning paradigm

This study was examined the effects of trace interval on conditioned response between delayed and trace conditioning. Twenty subjects assigned to delayed conditioning group or trace conditioning group. A pure tone was used as CS, and an electric shock of 5 mA was used as UCS. Duration of CS was 10 seconds, and trace interval was 20 seconds. In delayed conditioning group, CS was immediately followed by UCS at CS-offset. In trace conditioning group, CS was followed by trace interval, and UCS was presented after trace interval. Six reinforcements were administered for subjects of both groups. Phasic changing pattern of HR were measured as indices of CR. The results were as follows : (1) In delayed conditioning group, HR during CS presentation showed triphasic changing pattern, while HR in trace conditioning group showed decelerative changing pattern. (2) Before UCS presentation, HR showed triphasic changing pattern both in delayed and trace conditioning. These results indicated that trace interval would affect CR acquisitive process

Effects of Affective-evaluative Response to CSs on Fear Conditioning

The preparedness theory of phobia holds that humans are biologically prepared to learn to fear ohjects and situations that threatened the human species throughout its evolutonary history (Seligman, 1971). Biological preparedness is postulated to be responsible for the rapid acquition of fear, a resistance to the influence of cognitive factors, resistance to extinction, and belongingness. Because of some difficulties, many reseachers suggest that preparedness effects may be produced by cognitive factors rather than biological factors. The present experiment aimed to test whether preparedness effects were found on CRs to neutral stimulus by semantic conditioning. In semantic conditioning, subjects recieved nine presentations of two types of CS word-UCS word pair. CS words were 'circle' and 'triangle', and UCS words were 'noisy' and 'silent'. After semantic conditioning, they were classically conditioned by nine CS-UCS pairs. The figure of circle was used as CS+, and CS-was that of triangle. Loudy-noise was used as UCS. In SCC group, CS word-UCS word pairs ('circle'-'noisy', 'triangle'-'silent') were meaningly concordant with CS-UCS pair. In SCD group, CS word-UCS word pairs ('circle'-'silent', 'triangle'-'noisy') were meaningly discordant with CS-UCS pair. Subjects of control group didn't expose to semantic conditioning. Heart rate, score of Affective Adjective Check List and affective-evaluative response (preference) to CSs were measured as indexes of conditioned response (CR). Primary results were as follows : (1) Directions of change on preferences to CSs by semantic conditioning and classical conditoning were concordant. (2) During classical conditioning, compared with other groups, SCC group's A. A. C. L. score were low, and SCD group's HR was higher than SCC group's. (3) Differentiation of initial preferences to CSs didn't effected on reported anxiety. These results indicated that preparedness effects could not be found by initial semantic relations between CSs and UCS, and by initial preference to CS

A Preliminary Study on Perception of Accelerated Heartbeat

The purpose of this study was to investigate on the perception of a bodily symptom, 'accelerated heartbeat'. In this study, three experimental conditions were set up. First condition was the true-feedback (TF) condition, in which subject was presented true feedback signals corresponding to actual heartbeats. Second condition was the false-feedback (FF) condition, in which subject was presented the false feedback signals being irrelevant to actual heartbeats. Third condition was the no-feedback (NF) condition. The major results were as follows ; (1) In the TF-condition, abilities to perceive accelerated heartbeat were different inter- and intra-subjects. (2) In the FF-condition, almost subjects perceived accelerated heartbeat were inaccurate. (3) Frequencies of perception in the NF-condition were fewer than in the TF-condition. As the cue for perception of accelerated heartbeat, subjects used not only information relevant to heartbeats such as a pulse but also respiration, degree of concentration, and so on. These results suggested that abilities to perceive accelerated heartbeat were different inter- and intra-individuals, even when they could discriminate their heartbeats perfectly, and that, if an information unrelated to accelerated heartbeat was used as the cue, subject perceived their accelerated heartbeat inaccurately. Further, the cue for interoceptive perception of accelerated heartbeat was not restricted information directly relevant to heartbeats

Factor analysis of Japanese version of the Obsessional-Compulsive lnventory

The 30-items Maudsley Obsessional-Compulsive Inventory (MOCI) was developed as an instrument for assessing the existence and extend of different obsessional-compulsive complaints by Hodgson & Rachman (1977). MOCI is composed of two major types of complaint, checking and cleaning compulsions, and two minor types, slowness and doubting. Rachman & Hodgson (1980) considered the complaints of checking and cleaning as the representative coping behaviors of prevention and provocation. These types of coping behavior could be observed in daily stressful situation. This study was to explore the Japanese version of MOCI available to evaluate the degree of obsessional-compulsive tendency observed in non-clinical persons. The Japanese version of MOCI was administered to 600 normal students to re-investigate the factor structure of this scale. Principal factor analysis and varimax rotation were adopted to extract the significant factors from 30×30 correlation matrix. Three factors, checking, cleaning and doubting-ruminating were extracted independently, but the complaint of slowness was not found as a significant factor. Additively to explore in their correlations with obsessional-complsive complaints, trait anxiety and time anxiety, MOCI, STAI-T form and TAS were administered to 213 normal students. TAS is composed of three subscales, namely, time confusion, time irritation and time submissiveness. The results were as follows. (1) Checking, cleaning and doubting were positively correlated with trait anxiety, but slowness was negatively correlated. (2) All obsessional-compulsive complaints but slowness were positively correlated with time confusion. Slowness and cleaning were positively correlated with time irritation, and negatively correlated with time submissiveness. These results indicate that slowness and cleaning complaints are somewhat different from other obsessional-compulsive complaints

Relations of nostalgia with music to emotional response and recall of autobiographical memory

Previous researches suggest that musical mood and preferences affects on emotional response, and that context of music also affects on musical-dependent memory. We often feel 'nostalgia' when listening to old familiar tunes. Nostalgia is related to eliciting positive emotions, recall of autobiographical memory and positive evaluations for recall contents. The present study aimed to examine effects of musical mood, preference and nostalgia on emotional responses, the amounts of recall of autobiographical memory, and evaluations to contents of them. Participants were 50 undergraduates. They were presented with 4 music pieces that have listened when they were about ten-years-old. All participants listened to all pieces. As the results, the influences of nostalgia elicited greater positive emotion and amounts of recall of autobiographical memory than musical mood and musical preference. Regardless of musical mood and preference, the more feeling nostalgia, the more elicits positive emotion and autobiographical memory recall

Affect of reality monitoring in obsessive-compulsive checker

Reality monitoring has been considered as a cause of a check compulsion, which is one dominantsymptom in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, the previous studies could not confirm confusionsof reality monitoring in OCD checkers but found decrements of the confidence for memorizing (McNally& Kohlbeck, 1993; Constant, For, Franklin & Mathes, 1995). Since the previous studies had many problemsconcerning to the task and the hedonic value of stimuli, they could not discuss confusions of reality monitoringof OCD checkers sufficiently. The present study aimed to examine the reality monitoring of OCD checkers byusing an incidental learning task, which hedonic values of stimuli were experimentally controlled (neutral,negative and positive). As results, confusions of the reality monitoring of OCD were found in false alarms ofneutral and positive words. However, any decrement of the confidence for memorizing was not found. Theseresults were inconsistent with the finding of the previous studies

Cognitive processes on Pavlovian conditioning.

The Pavlovian conditioning model has been proposed as a model of etiology of anxiety disorders. However, it has been pointed out that traditional Pavlovian conditioning model could not explain some of clinical issues, then clinical researchers cast doubts on validities as a model of anxiety disorders. In recent years, it was proposed a cognitive Pavlovian conditioning model to reconcile the model with clinical findings. This model has been assumed that an elicitation of conditioned response (CR) is determined by two cognitive evaluations, which are dealt with the expectancy process and the revaluation process for the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). Results of experimental and clinical researches indicated that this model could explain many clinical phenomena. This model, however, is not enough to examine the effect of biological factors and evaluative conditioning on a fear learning as a phobic model. Therefore, we have proposed a new cognitive Pavlovian conditioning model in consideration of the effect of affective-evaluative processing to conditioned stimulus (CS). This model has been able to explain both the effect of an evaluative and a signal learning

Attentional bias for words of concern in anxious mood

It has been reported that anxious subjects attend selectively to threat information, and especially to the threat information that is congruent with their individual concern. In this study, 15 high trait anxiety and 15 low trait anxiety subjects performed a dot-probe task. Reaction times to threat words that were congruent or incongruent with their cocern were measured in high and low state anxiety states. The results showed that high trait anxiety subjects attended to the threat words of their concern in both states, while low trait anxiety subjects only in high anxiety state

Relation of social anxiety to the use of mobile phone, social networks, and mental health

The present study aimed to examine the relationship of social anxiety and social skill to the use of mobile phone, social network, and mental health. The mobile phone is available when we do not want to meet others because of feeling of communication stress. A total of 225 freshman completed questionnaire at both undertaken April and July. As result, high social anxiety and low social skill group tend to use the mail more than other groups. Their tendencies might be caused by their avoidance from interaction of others. They were worse psychological health and not satisfied with their new friends than other groups. These result show that social anxiety and social skill have relation of use of mobile phone, social networks, mental health