Abstract
Pupillary dilation of five groups of 10 subjects each was conditioned by pairing an auditory CS and an electric UCS for nine trials. Two additional groups of 10 subjects each served as controls for pseudoconditioning and adaptation during conditioning. At the onset of the six extinction trials, four of the five conditioned groups were given different conditions designed to induce awareness of the termination of the UCS if cognition governed extinction. The fifth conditioned group was given conventional extinction trials as a control. The four cognition-inducing conditions resulted in complete one-trial extinction supporting a one-rather than a two-factor explanation of this phenomenon. The five conditioned groups demonstrated complete one-trial acquisition as did also one of the two control groups given false expectation of a CS-UCS. This suggests that acquisition was also completely controlled by cognition.
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Jennings, L.B., Crosland, R., Loveless, S. et al. Cognitive Control of Extinction of Classically Conditioned Pupillary Response. Psychol Rec 28, 193–205 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03394527
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03394527