Abstract
Male and female rabbits received Pavlovian conditioning in which a 1, 216-Hz tone served as the CS and a 3-mA paraorbital electric shock train served as the US. Eyeblink (EB) and heart rate (HR) CRs were assessed. Half of the animals received prior exposure to the CS, while half were restrained in the chamber for a similar length of time but did not receive prior CS exposure. Different groups of each sex received three different CS intensities including 60, 75, and 90 dB (SPL) during both preexposure and conditioning. The results revealed that latent inhibition of the EB CR occurred only at the intermediate CS intensity, as indicated by a significant impairment of EB conditioning in this group. However, the magnitude of the decelerative HR CR was attenuated by prior CS exposure at all three CS intensities. Females showed faster EB conditioning than males, but latent inhibition occurred in both sexes. These results suggest that somatomotor and autonomic systems are affected differently by prior CS exposure.
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This research was supported by VA Institutional Research Funds.
A preliminary report of the present study was made at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 1979.
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Hernández, L.L., Buchanan, S.L. & Powell, D.A. CS preexposure: Latent inhibition and Pavlovian conditioning of heart rate and eyeblink responses as a function of sex and CS intensity in rabbits. Animal Learning & Behavior 9, 513–518 (1981). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209783
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209783