Pavlovian fear conditioning is a widely used behavioral paradigm for studying associative learning in rodents. Despite early recognition that subjects may engage in a variety of both conditioned and unconditioned responses, the last several decades have seen the field narrow its focus to measure freezing as the sole indicator of conditioned fear.…

In obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), functional behaviors such as checking that a door is locked become dysfunctional, maladaptive, and debilitating. However, it is currently unknown how aversive and appetitive motivations interact to produce functional and dysfunctional behavior in OCD. Here we show a double dissociation in the effects of…

Sign- and goal-tracking are differentially associated with drug abuse-related behavior. Recently, it has been hypothesized that sign- and goal-tracking behavior are mediated by different neurobehavioral valuation systems, including differential incentive salience attribution. Herein, we used different conditioned stimuli to preferentially elicit…

A sequence of behaviors consisting of appropriate responses, inappropriate responses, or a combination of both can be linked together in a behavior chain. Several operant processes may disrupt behavior chains. For example, one or more members of the behavior chain may be affected when reinforcement is withheld for the last response in the chain…

The results clearly indicate support for the general hypothesis of differential verbal conditioning effects as a function of the interaction between value related content and the S's personal value orientation. (Author)

Study results indicated that schizophrenics who shocked themselves upon experiencing auditory hallucinations failed to show significantly greater improvement than the control group. Thus the general conclusion drawn is that conditioning did not appear to be the mechanism by which most of the significant therapeutic changes occurred. (Author)

Hypotheses that efficacy of systematic desensitization could be attributed to anxlety reduction as a result of relaxation training, to extinction of nonreinforced fear responses, or to operation of placebo factors were tested as alternatives to counterconditioning hypothesis. Test anxiety reduction was found only for subjects given relaxation…

THIS BIBLIOGRAPHY SUPPLEMENT LISTS MATERIAL ON VARIOUS ASPECTS OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT. APPROXIMATELY 90 UNANNOTATED REFERENCES ARE PROVIDED TO DOCUMENTS DATING FROM 1956 TO 1966. JOURNALS, BOOKS, AND REPORT MATERIALS ARE LISTED. SUBJECT AREAS INCLUDED ARE BEHAVIOR TESTS, CONDITIONING, MATERNAL REACTIONS, GRADE PREDICTABILITY, EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES,…

Pigeons were trained to respond to stimuli from a continuous stimulus dimension (tonal frequency) with response values from continuous response dimension. Both the number of points of correspondence and problem difficulty were varied. Following training, subjects were tested with stimulus values intermediate to those trained. During these test…

Within an experimental paradigm that simulated systematic desensitization, the effects of manipulated cognitive expectancy on avoidance behavior were evaluated. The results indicated that both overt avoidance behavior and two verbal indexes were differentially affected by expectancy and that no relationship between avoidance behavior and autonomic…

Behaviors that are appropriate, inappropriate, or a combination of both can be linked together in a behavior chain. When the contingencies for one response change (e.g., reinforcement is withheld for the last response in the chain; the last response is reinforced even if it occurs without the other responses in the chain) or the environmental…

Results support the hypothesized relationship between meaning and phobia. Semantic desensitization techniques based on counter conditioning of meaning were significantly effective in altering the semantic value of the word from unpleasantness to neutrality. (Author)

In a case of claustrophobia and in another with fears of flying, Japanese defense activities of the Karate type proved to be effective counter conditioners of anxiety. They were used in the former case in vivo and in the later case both in imagination and in vivo. (Author)