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Pavlovian Journal of Biological Science, 18, No. 3, July-Sept 1983, pp. 126-135
Pavlovian_extinction83.doc
Pavlovian Extinction, Phobias, and
the Limits of the Cognitive Paradigm
JOHN J. FUREDY, * DIANE M. RILEY, *
AND MATS FREDRIKSON**
*University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, and
**Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract—The slow or total lack of decrease in some autonomic responses during extinction in aversive conditioning and concomitant verbalizations of fear have remained a
problem for learning theories and psychophysiology. Removal of the aversive stimulus
should result in a rapid decrement in responding, as it does in cognitive and somatic
systems. In laboratory analogues of phobia and clinical neurosis, however, such decreases do not occur in some autonomic responses and reported fear. In this article three
areas of research are presented in which dissociations occur between cognitive and
autonomic responses: 1) relational learning, 2) phobia, and 3) incubation. The data indicate that there are some important distinctions to be made concerning the properties of
different psychological and physiological systems. These distinctions pertain to the differences between cognitive and noncognitive systems, between the two branches of the
ANS, and between acquisition and extinction processes. These distinctions lead to a
number of hypotheses concerning dissociations between response systems and have
important implications for the understanding and treatment of neurosis.
ALTHOUGH THE TERMS "S-R behaviorism" and
"cognitive" are often ambiguously used by
psychological theorists, it is quite obvious that a socalled shift in "paradigm" (e.g., Segal and Lachman
1972) has taken place in psychology during the last
15 years. The shift in the cognitive direction is
evident from the almost universal acceptance of the
(often implicit) assumption that propositional1
information is all important in determining all
behavior. The "information-processing" view has
gained ascendancy in such areas as human learning
and memory. Moreover, even in behavioristic areas
of animal learning such as Skinnerian operant
conditioning, propositional information-processing
models are frequently employed. Again, and
somewhat ironically, in the study of the orienting
reflex (OR), recent workers in the area (e.g.,
Ohman 1979, Siddle and Spinks 1979) explicitly
advocate and employ cognitive informationprocessing models.
Finally, the term "cognitive" has acquired
positive valence to a degree that many areas of
psychology are now designated with this term as
a qualifier. This designation has occurred not only
in such relatively neutral areas as developmental
and social psychology. Even a formerly strictly
behavioristic area like behavior therapy is now
frequently referred to by its exponents as cognitive
behavior therapy.2
In Pavlovian conditioning itself, the influence of
the cognitive shift may be less apparent if only
because few theorists have employed the qualifier
"cognitive" to describe Pavlovian conditioning.
However, the way in which most workers currently
view Pavlovian conditioning is in fact an approach
that can be described as a thoroughgoing cognitive
one. In Pavlovian conditioning, the beginnings of
this cognitive shift may be traced to two chapters in
an influential symposium on the work of leading
North American Pavlovian conditioners (Prokasy
1965). In one chapter, Kamin (1965), employing
evidence from the conditioned emotional response
(CER) preparation, argued persuasively against the
importance of the CS-US interval, considered
critical in such standard texts on learning as that by
Kimble (1961). In another chapter, Prokasy (1965)
put
COGNITIVE PARADIGM
forward a view of conditioning that emphasized the
importance not of the CS-US interval, but of the
CS-US contingency. Then, in what was probably
the most influential paper on Pavlovian conditioning of the decade, Rescorla (1967) put forward this contingency3 account as applying to all
forms of Pavlovian conditioning: The subsequent
Rescorla-Wagner model (e.g., Rescorla and
Wagner 1972) has come to dominate current conditioning theory, at least as regards the fundamental
assumption of the model.
That fundamental assumption of propositional
accounts is that conditioning is simply a form of SS learning of the contingency relationships between
the CS and the US. Thus what is learned, on this
view, is a sign-significate relationship between the
CS and the US. These cognitive contingency
relationships are different from such noncognitive
S-R contiguity relationships (i.e., S-R learning) to
which application of the terms true or false would
constitute a category mistake, i.e., would make no
sense. It is for this reason that Tolman's cognitive
maps (which stated sign-significate relationships)
were propositional and cognitive, in contrast to
Hull and Spence's fractional anticipatory goal
responses (which, through such mechanisms as
stimulus generalization, were related to, or elicited
by, the environmental stimuli). On this purely
Tolmanian,
cognitive-contingency
view
of
Pavlovian conditioning, then, all performance
measures of conditioning taken such as salivation,
eyelid, galvanic skin response (GSR), heart-rate
(HR), conditioned emotional response (CER), and
poison avoidance, are viewed simply as
manifestations of, or as being completely governed
by, the cognitive CS-US contingency learning
process.
There is, however, a considerable body of evidence against the cognitive-contingency view,
evidence that places severe empirical "limits"
(Furedy 1973) on the cognitive paradigm. The
present paper is concerned with Pavlovian conditioning where the dependent variables reflect autonomic functions such as the GSR and the
peripheral vasomotor response. The main reason
for this focus is that such measures are not only
autonomically mediated, but are mainly under the
control of the sympathetic branch of the autonomic
nervous system (ANS). This branch, in turn, is
particularly relevant to the paper's concern with
phobias, because the fully blown phobic reaction
has a considerable sympathetic component in it.
In this analysis we shall first present a brief
review of the evidence on the limits of the cognitive paradigm's application to human Pavlovian
conditioning. We shall then discuss some fundamental distinctions that are suggested by that
127
evidence. Finally, we shall present some testable
hypotheses that are derivable from our analysis.
Evidence From Human Pavlovian
Autonomic Conditioning for Limits
of the Cognitive Approach
This evidence consists of instances of dissociations between cognitive and autonomic systems or
processes. Dissociative evidence of this sort is
relevant because it is contrary to the prevailing
cognitive paradigm that the cognitive controls the
autonomic, or that "human classical conditioning is
mediated by an expectancy of, and preparation for
the UCS" (Dawson 1973). The dissociative
evidence to be presented will be drawn first from
Pavlovian autonomic acquisition and then from
extinction.
Acquisition
This evidence comes from previously published
papers reporting experiments performed in the
Toronto laboratory. The strategy adopted in these
experiments was to measure not only the autonomic
processes in question, but also the cognitive
process of the learning of the CS-US contingency—the process of relational learning (c.f., e.g.
Furedy and Schiffmann 1971, Furedy, Arabian,
Thiels, and George 1982). The most precise form
of relational learning measure that has been used is
that of a within-experimental, continuously
recorded index of subjective contingency (SC), first
detailed in Furedy (1973). Subjects provide this SC
index by continuously moving a dial to indicate
their moment to moment changes in belief about
the occurrence of the US. Figure 1, taken from the
results of Schiffmann and Furedy (1977), depicts
data based on the SC measure. Positive and
negative ordinate values reflect, respectively,
contingency beliefs that the US is and is not likely
to occur; zero values indicate neutrality of belief
about US occurrence. The abscissa depicts trials
and seconds (0-10) following onset of the CS.
Hence the SC values following CS onset (see
especially sees 4 and 5, where the CS-produced SC
performance appears to reach full development)
represent subjective CS-US contingency beliefs,
whereas the SC values at CS onset (i.e., sec 0)
represent
subjective
intertrial-interval
(or
background stimuli) contingency beliefs.
The Positive-CS (pCS) Group received excitatory conditioning trials with the CS being always followed by the US at a 5-sec CS-US interval.
The Random-CS (rCS) Group was one where the
relation between CS and US was random, this
128
FUREDY, RILEY AND FREDRIKSON
FIG. 1. Mean SC at 1-sec intervals from CS onset to
10 sec after CS onset for the pCS, rCS, and nCS
groups during preliminary and three blocks of
conditioning trials. (The vertical interrupted line
marks the point of US onset in the pCS group.)
CS being the neutral, "truly random" CS stated by
Rescorla (1967) to be the only proper control for
Pavlovian conditioning. For the Negative-CS (nCS)
Group, the CS was negatively correlated with US
occurrence, this CS being inhibitory or "explicitly
unpaired" in terms of the contingency model
(Rescorla 1967).
The SC results depicted in Figure 1 appear to
reflect quite accurately the predictions of the
cognitive-contingency account (e.g., Rescorla
1967). Especially by the last block of trials (11-15),
the pCS, rCS and nCS are perceived, respectively,
as excitatory, neutral, and inhibitory. Moreover, the
background to the pCS and nCS, as represented by
the 0-sec SC values, appears to
FIG. 2. Mean GSR (conductance change) to the CS
of the pCS, rCS, and nCS groups.
become, over trials, inhibitory and excitatory,
respectively. Finally, the SC measure appears to
reflect the time of US occurrence quite accurately,
since in the pCS condition the SC value changes
dramatically from positive to negative immediately
following the 5th sec following CS onset.
However, the aspect relevant to dissociation
between the cognitive and the autonomic is that in
Figure 1 the SC dependent variable, especially by
trials 11-15, shows clear sensitivity to negative
contingency as represented by the contrast between
SC performance to the nCS and rCS controls. In
contrast, the autonomically mediated GSR
dependent variable results depicted in Figure 2 did
not discriminate between the nCS and rCS.
However, as with the SC, evidence for conditioning
was obtained, since the GSR discriminated between
pCS and the two control stimuli (rCS and nCS).
The dissociation between the cognitively mediated,
propositional SC dependent variable and such
autonomically mediated (and at least partly
sympathetically influenced) dependent variables as
the GSR and the vasomotor response, has been
replicated in a number of Pavlovian conditioning
studies run under a wide variety of conditions
(Furedy 1971 and 1974, Furedy and Schiffmann
1971 and 1973, Schiffmann and Furedy 1972).
Accordingly, the dissociative evidence of Figures 1
and 2 detailed here may be said to be fully
representative of the human autonomic Pavlovian
conditioning evidence, because, to our knowledge,
no evidence for autonomic sensitivity to negative
contingencies exists.
While the dissociative evidence presented thus
far is contrary to the notion that the cognitive
completely controls the autonomic, and while the
two sorts of processes are different also in terms of
applicability of the true/false category, this is not to
say that they are completely independent of one
another. There is ample evidence to suggest that
autonomic conditioning cannot occur without the
subjects being aware of the CS-US contingency
(e.g., Fuhrer and Baer 1965), which is interpretable
as showing that relational learning is necessary for
autonomic conditioning. However, even if this
interpretation is accepted, the dissociative evidence
referred to here shows that the cognitive process,
while it may be necessary, is certainly not sufficient
to produce autonomic conditioning (c.f. also the
necessity-gate hypothesis of Dawson and Furedy
1976).
Another source of dissociative evidence comes
from examining the correlation between the cognitive (SC) and autonomic (GSR) dependent variables, since if the cognitive fully controlled the
autonomic, then high positive correlations should
COGNITIVE PARADIGM
be observed between the two sorts of dependent
variables. Table 1 shows the actual observed
correlation between SC and GSR for the
Schiffmann-Furedy (1977) experiment. These
cognitive-autonomic correlations were computed
both within subjects (i.e., trial-by-trial) and between subjects (i.e., overall) for each of the three
groups. The fairest summary of the table is that
there is essentially no relationship between the SC
and GSR measures, with two out of six coefficients
reaching significance, but with one of these being
negative rather than positive. Moreover, as in the
case of the dissociative evidence presented in
Figures 1 and 2, so too the lack of high positive
cognitive-autonomic correlations shown in Table 1
has been extensively duplicated in other experiments. In a number of studies run under a variety
of conditions, the pattern of correlations has consistently failed to show the high positive values
demanded by the cognitive-control position (c.f.,
Furedy and Schiffman 1971, 1973, and 1974,
Schiffman and Furedy 1972).
Extinction
The genesis and maintenance of phobias have
challenged students of learning in several ways.
Whereas fear is a normal response to some real or
imagined threat, phobias are characterized as far
more intense fears accompanied by autonomic
arousal leading to the avoidance of the situations
eliciting it. Both phobics and nonphobics intellectually identify the situations provoking such horror
as rather harmless. Thus, the intellectual and
emotional evaluations of a stimuli are at variance,
presenting a challenge, especially for cognitive
theorists. Other phobic idiosyncracies in search of
theoretical explanations are the facts that phobias 1)
are easily acquired, 2) show extreme resistance to
extinction and 3) resist cognitive manipulations
(Marks 1969, Fredrikson 1980). In addition, when
confronted with their feared object, phobics exhibit
a different physiological response pattern than that
seen in nonphobics viewing neutral stimuli (e.g.,
Fredrikson 1981).
With respect to phobias, extinction laboratory
evidence offers more dramatic illustrations of the
limits of the cognitive paradigm than are afforded
by the acquisition evidence reviewed above. This is
so because in acquisition there is at least a degree
of parallelness between cognitive and autonomic
processes, inasmuch as both increase as a function
of CS-US association. Conversely, we would
expect that when the extinction procedure was put
into effect, i.e., the removal of the CS-US
association, there would be a parallel decrease in
both processes. However, this is neither the case as
regards autonomically mediated responses
129
TABLE 1. Cognitive-Autonomic Correlations
Trial
-by-Trial
Standard
Mean Deviation Overall
pCS Group
(N = 30)
rCS Group
(N = 30)
nCS
(N = 30)
.06
.28
.33*
.06
.28
.19
-.lit
.22
-.08
* P < .05.
**P < .01.
seen in phobias nor under certain laboratory conditions using the GSR and the vasomotor response.
The main source of the relevant dissociative
extinction evidence is from experiments conducted
in the Uppsala laboratory by Ohman and his
associates. These studies have shown that it is
possible to mimic the responding of phobics in
nonfearful subjects using aversive classical conditioning of autonomic responses to phobogenic
stimuli (e.g., Fredrikson and Ohman 1979). In these
studies normal subjects were presented with a
shock US paired either with a phobogenic (slides of
spiders and snakes) or nonphobic CS (slides of
flowers and mushrooms).
Conditional GSRs to phobogenic as compared to
nonphobic stimuli are acquired in a single trial,
show minimal extinction, and resist cognitive
manipulations once they are acquired. Also, conditioning to phobogenic CSs interact with individual factors such as skin conductance lability, but
not with sex of the subjects (see review by 0hman,
Fredrikson and Hugdahl 1978). Thus, to explain
phobias both situational and individual variables
have to be invoked.
Figure 3 gives an example from Fredrikson and
Ohman (1979) showing that attenuation of the GSR
was significantly less to phobogenic CSs than to
nonphobic CSs when the US was withheld during
an extinction phase. Nor did extinction occur for
the phobogenic CSs in the vasomotor response.
Although awareness of the CS-US contingency in
acquisition and extinction was not formally assessed in these studies, there is little doubt that the
(normal, college student) subjects were aware of
the extinction CS-US contingency; yet their
autonomic responses failed to parallel either this
cognitive awareness or the extinction operations.
130
FUREDY, RILEY AND FREDRIKSON
FIG. 3. Mean probability of GSR (SCR) to CS+
and CS- during habituation, acquisition and extinction for groups conditioned to fear-relevant and
fear-irrelevant stimuli.
An even more convincing demonstration of the
same sort of cognitive-autonomic dissociation is
the case where the normal subjects are actually
instructed about the extinction contingency, and
report that they do in fact believe the instructions.
Still, as shown in Figure 4, based on the results of
Hugdahl and Ohman (1977), the au-
FIG. 4. Mean GSR (SCR) to CS+ and CS- during
acquisition and extinction for groups conditioned to
fear-relevant and fear-irrelevant stimuli and being
either instructed or noninstructed about extinction.
tonomically mediated GSR extinguished slower, in
the case of the phobogenic CSs. It is these sorts of
results that led Ohman, who favors the cognitive
paradigm, to say that "there is a body of
experimental data, however, which poses problems
for the present [cognitive] approach" (Ohman
1979).
Finally, there is an autonomic phenomenon in
extinction which is even more dramatic: incubation.
This occurs whenever the response actually
increases as a function of extinction. It is important
to recognize that this phenomenon is hardly robust
(c./., e.g., Gray 1975), but the fact that it occurs
even sometimes is of interest. Figure 5, based on
data reported by Champion and Jones (1962),
provides an example of incubation, especially in
the group labeled TS-S. This group received shock
USs paired with tone CSs during acquisition, and
then the USs and CSs were unpaired during
extinction. As is clear from the graph, responding
increased during this extinction phase. Again, no
formal measures of subjective contingency were
taken, but it is almost certain that the (normal)
subjects of this experiment were aware that the
shock was no longer paired with the tone; yet their
GSR to the tone not only failed to decrease, but
actually increased, during extinction.
Distinctions Suggested by the Evidence
One distinction that arises from the above evidence is that between cognitive and noncognitive
systems. A cognitive system such as the higher
CNS is sensitive to prepositional information
concerning CS/US contingency relationships. It
reacts relatively rapidly and accurately to changes
in sign-significate relationships, but this mode of
operation is not representative of all systems in the
organism.
In particular, such noncognitive systems as the
ANS are relatively insensitive to CS/US contingencies. Discrimination along the negativecontingency dimension (e.g., between a zerocontingency and negative-contingency sign
stimulus) is poor, and contingency variations
especially in a negative direction (as in the case of
extinction following acquisition) are not readily
processed. It bears emphasis that such noncognitive
systems are no less real or important than cognitive
systems in the total functioning of the organism
(c.f., Rachman 1981). Attribution of such inferior
status to noncognitive systems follows only if one
accepts a model of functioning that is solely
cognitive in the sense that all systems in the
organism are viewed as being controlled by the
cognitive information-processing system. On this
model of functioning, an ANS
COGNITIVE PARADIGM
reaction like the GSR is viewed, like all other
reactions, as an index of the central cognitive
system, but the evidence reviewed above indicated
that this model of functioning is false.
Indeed, when the aspect of interest is that of the
phobic reaction, which is powerfully influenced by
ANS factors, the relative importance of
noncognitively functioning systems becomes even
more apparent. And just as in the laboratory,
extinction of ANS-influenced dependent measures
(like the GSR) is not guaranteed by the subject's
being aware of the propositional information about
the new extinction contingencies, so in the case of
the treatment of phobic reactions it is not surprising
that these reactions are not readily extinguishable
by purely rational (i.e., propositional, cognitive)
means. Rather, phobias are irrational, since phobics
intellectually recognize the harmlessness of their
phobic objects, whereas they emotionally
experience them as threatening.
A second distinction is that between the speed of
inhibition of the two branches of the ANS,
branches which do appear to involve different
neurotransmitters. In particular, the sympathetic
branch, which is implicated in the phobic reaction,
is slower to inhibit than the parasympathetic
system. Differences in terms of innervation might
account for differences between GSR and HR in
phobic conditioning in the Uppsala laboratory
experiments reviewed above (Fredrikson and
0hman 1979). SNS activation also might be relevant for explaining why the GSRs to potentially
phobic CSs were not extinguishable as compared to
responses to the nonphobic CSs.
The third and final distinction is that between the
learning processes involved in acquisition and
extinction. It is true that, in procedural terms, both
may be seen as a way of manipulating CS/ US
contingencies. On this procedural, physical view,
acquisition provides positive contingencies whereas
extinction provides negative ones. Alternatively, on
a pairings version of this view, the CS and US are
paired and unpaired, respectively, in acquisition
and extinction.
However, the way in which different systems in
an organism react to the two procedures may obey
different laws. In particular, a noncognitive system
like the ANS may not react in an appropriately
opposite way to acquisition and extinction
procedures. This would be expected on the view
that the ANS is not sensitive to contingencies but
only to contiguities between stimuli. The
contingency/contiguity
distinction
is
not
empirically important in the case of positive
correlations between CS and US, i.e., a pCS. In that
(acquisition) procedure, the system can register
either the contingency or the contiguity, both
producing an excitation to the pCS. Thus, in
131
FIG. 5. Mean % GSR to CS during extinction for
groups for which tone (T) and shock (S) were
paired during acquisition. In extinction, groups
either received shocks (S) unpaired with tones, or
no shocks (NS).
Figure 2, the GSR discrimination between the pCS
and the control CSs could be interpreted either as
sensitive to contigency or to contiguity. The
interpretation in terms of mere contiguityregistering only the presence but not the absence of
a stimulus is supported by the failure of the GSR to
discriminate between the two control stimuli, rCS
and nCS. This failure contrasts sharply with the
apparent contingency-sensitivity of a cognitive
measure like that of SC (c.f., Figure 1), which
suggests that the cognitive higher CNS system
operates in terms of sign-signilicate contingency
relationships rather than those of mere contiguity.
The slowness of SNS-controlled reactions to
dissipate means that responses like the GSR which
reflect this branch of the ANS will be retarded in
extinction on two counts (a) the failure of the
system to register (negative) contingencies, and (b)
the presence of undissipated sympathetic activity
elicited by the previous CS. On the other hand,
PNS-dominated reactions like the HR CR (c.f., e.g.,
Obrist 1981) will be retarded in extinction only on
the former of the two counts. In that connection, it
is important to note that there is independent
evidence that the HR CR does not register the
contingency difference reflected be-
FUREDY, RILEY AND FREDRIKSON
132
tween variations in US probability using "truly
random" and "explicitly unpaired" controls (Szalai
and Furedy 1978; Westregren and Furedy 1978).
Some Testable Hypotheses
Deducible From the Analysis
We present four hypotheses that are both obvious
and testable.
Intertrial Interval (ITI) Duration
in Extinction
The ITI during extinction is the interval between
the offset of one CS and the onset of the next. A
purely cognitive paradigm would not predict effects
of varying the ITI over small ranges, i.e., 10-60
sees. However, the present analysis would predict
that especially with potentially phobic CSs of the
sort used in the Uppsala experiments, extinction
would be more readily obtained in such ANS
responses as the GSR with longer ITIs. The
rationale for this hypothesis lies in the above
mentioned notion that the SNS is relatively slow to
inhibit. The effect of lengthening the ITI should be
to allow SNS activity to be dissipated by the time
the next CS is presented, so that there is no longer a
contiguity connection set up between the next CS
and the remains of the previous SNS reaction.
Some support for this notion was given by
Fredrikson (1981), who observed extinction of
GSR conditioned to phobogenic CSs when
acquisition and extinction phases were separated by
some days. From these considerations it also
follows that the influence of the ITI manipulation
on the extinction of ANS-controlled responses
should be greatest when the CSs have a
predominant SNS effect. It also follows that any
ANS-controlled responses which are dominantly
PNS controlled like the heart-rate CR (c.f., Obrist
1981) should be uninfluenced by the ITI
manipulation, as, of course, should be such
cognitive measures as the SC. It should be noted
that experiments testing this hypothesis should
increase the ITI in extinction; acquisition ITI
should be run at a relatively short standard
duration, so as to ensure that any differences are
due to the extinction rather than any acquisition
manipulation.
CS Duration in Extinction
Increasing the CS duration in extinction should
promote extinction especially with potentially
phobic CSs for the reasons given above. This
prediction is consistent with results summarized by
Leitenberg (1976) indicating that prolonged
exposure to a phobic cue reduces fear and au-
tonomic responding in phobics. In the case of this
second hypothesis, however, it appears that a
cognitive view would yield a prediction in the
opposite direction. Specifically, increasing CS
duration is likely to retard the registration of the
new (negative) extinction contingency. Moreover,
this expectation can be removed from the level of
speculation by actually observing that propositional
contingency registration by employing the SC
measure. This hypothesis, then, predicts that
increasing CS duration will enhance extinction in
SNS-dominated
dependent
variables,
have
negligible effects on PNS-dominated dependent
variables, and retard extinction in cognitive
dependent variables measuring relational learning.
The CS-US Interval
With the advent of the cognitive paradigm, this
variable which formerly has been considered critical for conditioning (e.g., Kimble 1961) is now
viewed by most as unimportant. The reasons for
this shift cannot lie purely in the evidence, because
in Pavlovian preparations like the eyelid and
nictitating membrane, CS-US or inter stimulus
intervals (ISIs) of longer that 2 sec produce little or
no conditioning at all. Nevertheless, there are
evidential considerations for the de-emphasis of the
CS-US interval. These include the work of Kamin
(1965), who showed that varying the I SI from
about 1 sec to about 2 min had little or no effect on
the CER form of Pavlovian conditioning, and the
work of Garcia and his associates (e.g., Garcia and
Koelling, 1966) which showed that appreciable
conditioning was obtainable in the poison
avoidance preparation with ISIs of as long as
several hours. It is evident that the cognitive
paradigm assigns little importance to the CS-US
interval, since the dominant cognitive, contingency
Rescorla-Wagner mathematical model (1972) of
Pavlovian conditioning has no parameter that
reflects the duration of the ISI. Accordingly, as in
the case of the ITI, the cognitive view's prediction
for the effect of varying the ISI in conditioning is a
null prediction.
In contrast, the present view's position concerning ANS-controlled dependent variables, where
the process is a noncognitive and response-learning
one, is that shorter ISIs will produce superior
conditioning. Specifically, with a dependent
variable like the GSR, the hypothesis is that a Visec ISI will produce superior conditioning than an
8-sec ISI (the latter ISI being commonly used by
the Uppsala laboratory and others). This hypothesis
is asserted for all forms of Pavlovian autonomic
conditioning, but for the purpose of the present
paper, the most relevant experimental context for
testing the hypothesis is
COGNITIVE PARADIGM
a second-order conditioning model originally used
by Hare and Blevings (1975) in which phobic and
nonphobic subjects have a neutral CS-tone
preceding a phobic "unconditional" slide. As
compared to nonphobics the phobic group showed
greater SCRs and HR acceleration during the 11secCS.
Thus, such a model should use patients with
specific animal phobias such as snake phobia, and
slides of snakes to elicit a genuine phobic reaction
evidenced by large magnitude GRS and HRacceleration. The critical point is that what is
conditioned is more likely to be a genuine phobic
reaction (Hare and Blevings 1975) than in the
phobogenic CS model used in the Uppsala experiments . Conditioning of such dependent variables
as HR and the GSR in phobics, then, should be
superior with a V2-sec ISI relative to an 8-sec ISI.
On the other hand, a cognitive dependent variable
like the SC measure discussed in the first section
should be unaffected by the ISI.
Short-Interval "Backward" US-CS Conditioning
As in the case of the second hypothesis, this sort of
US-CS arrangement can be used to derive
predictions that both assert differences, but in
opposite directions depending on whether the
present analysis or the cognitive paradigm is
adopted. The proposed preparation for testing this
hypothesis is again the second-order conditioning
model previously described. The two conditions
would be a "backward" CS (bCS), whose onset
would follow US onset by .7 sec, and an explicitly
unpaired or negatively correlated CS (nCS) which
would have a period of at least 30 sec between it
and the next US. As detailed in Furedy et al. (1982,
Exp. III), an S-R, response-learning position such
as that of Jones's (1962) contiguity-reinforcement
theory views this sort of short-interval bCS
arrangement as not really backward in terms of S-R
contiguity, because a long-latency UR like the GSR
follows bCS onset even though US onset precedes
bCS onset. Hence, on this S-R view, conditioning is
expected with the bCS, though not with the nCS
where there is no CS-UR contiguity. Hence the S-R
prediction is that the bCS will elicit greater
autonomic responding than the nCS (bCS > nCS).
On the other hand, as also detailed elsewhere
(Furedy et al., 1982, Exp. III), according to the
cognitive, contingency Rescorla-Wagner (1972)
model, the bCS is more inhibitory than the nCS as
regards the CS-US contingencies, so that the
cognitive paradigm would predict a bCS < nCS
result. This differential pattern of outcomes were in
fact obtained for the GSR and SC dependent
variables in normal subjects with tone and loud
noise as the CS and
133
US, respectively (Furedy et al., 1982, Exp. III;
Furedy and Thiels 1981). However, testing the
hypothesis with a second-order conditioning model
using phobics would be of greater relevance to the
question of the sort of mechanisms that may
underlie the acquisition of phobias.
Summary and Conclusions
This paper began with a general overview of the
limits of the cognitive paradigm as applied to
Pavlovian conditioning. Evidence was reviewed in
more detail concerning instances of cognitiveautonomic dissociations, and it was suggested that
the dissociations occurring in extinction were more
dramatic than those occurring in acquisition. The
relevance of this analysis to phobias lies in both the
striking nature of the extinction evidence, and the
fact that the full blown phobic reaction involves a
significant autonomic, sympathetic component. It
was then suggested that this evidence indicates the
importance of at least three distinctions: cognitive
vs. noncognitive systems, the two branches of the
ANS, and acquisition vs. extinction processes in
Pavlovian conditioning. Finally, four hypotheses
were specified which appear to be readily testable
in laboratory conditioning experiments.
The most important feature of this analysis, in
our view, is its emphasis on a multiprocess approach. This contrasts with the uniprocess approach
of the currently dominant cognitive paradigm, or,
for that matter, of the earlier dominant
behavioristic, S-R paradigm. All uniprocess
models, in our view, are unrealistic because they
ignore the brute fact that the organism's behavior is
determined by the complex interaction of qualitatively different systems. If we hope to arrive at
an adequate understanding of Pavlovian conditioning, as well as an adequate method of controlling phobias, we need to consider both cognitive SS and noncognitive S-R processes with equal
openess and rigor. The purpose of the present
analysis is to facilitate this mode of approaching
the problems.
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Footnotes
1
"Propositional" refers to any information or expression
that is statable in the form of a proposition to which the
true/false category can be sensibly applied. So the
expression, "X is Y", is propositional, and the subject (X)
and predicate (Y) terms are related by the copula ("is"). It
is only such copular relations that are propositional.
Other relations, like that between a stimulus and the
response it (regularly) elicits, are not propositional. So, to
use examples occurring later in the text, Tolman's
cognitive maps in which signs are related to significates
are propositional, because it makes sense to speak of
these sign-significate relations as either true (when the
map is right) or false (when the map is wrong). In
contrast, the Hull-Spence rg-sg hypothetical mechanism,
designed to perform the same explanatory function as
that performed by the Tolmanian cognitive map, does not
express a propositional relationship, because the
true/false category cannot sensibly be applied to it. Note
also that both sorts of hypothetical mechanisms can be
thought of as information inasmuch as they can both
change behavior, but only the (cognitive) Tolmanian one
is propositional. In this paper the terms "propositional"
and "'cognitive" will be used interchangeably. Although,
as a result of the recent so-called paradigm shift to
cognitive psychology (see, e.g., Segal and Lachman
1972), this usage is not common in current psychological
writings, where "'cognitive" has a much broader meaning
and "propositional" is hardly used, we consider our usage
to be more appropriate both because it stems historically
from the Hull-Tolman debates and because it is
consistent with traditional epistemological usage (e.g.,
Armstrong 1973, Lacey 1976). In addition, we wish to
restrict the term "cognitive" to propositional processes in
order to avoid the universality of extension, and
135
hence "incurable vagueness" (Ritchie 1965), that the term
"cognitive" has come to acquire (c.f., also Furedy 1980,
Riley and Furedy 1982).
2 It is interesting to reflect that from the forties to the
early sixties, employing the term cognitive to qualify an
area in this way would, at least in North America, have
been a sure way of denigrating the area in question. A
major tenet of S-R behaviorism was that any talk of
cognitive processes was fundamentally incompatible with
the aim of psychology as a science, and with what also
happens to be the explicitly stated aim of this Journal's
Society: the objective study of behavior.
3 Although the Rescorla-Wagner model is frequently
referred to as a contiguity account of Pavlovian condi
tioning, it is, strictly speaking, a contingency model. The
Rescorla-Wagner model is characterized by them selves
and other theorists (e.g., Gray 1975, Mackintosh 1973) as
a contiguity model because it is said to avoid explicit
reference to expectancies and mentalism, and presents
the Pavlovian condition process as one of gradual
incrementation as opposed to "insight." The RescorlaWagner model is, in fact, a contingency ac count because
it requires that the organism process propositional
information about the relationships between events rather
than simply requiring that the organism react to events.
That is, it is a model based on the learning of S-S
relationships, a process requiring representation. The
Rescorla-Wagner organism learns that the CS is a sign of
the USIa proposition, and therefore a contingency
relationship. A contiguity, or S-R account, on the other
hand, can only be based upon the learning of responses to
stimuli, a process requiring no representation or
processing of propositions. Thus, despite a popular
characterization as a contiguity model, the RescorlaWagner model is a contigency account. It differs from a
model explicitly labeled "contingency," such as that of
Mackintosh, only in the precision of the propositions
learned by the organism. For example, as reviewed by
Gray (1975), Mackintosh (1973) performed an
experiment that appears to refute the Rescorla-Wagner
position. In that experiment rats showed greater
inhibition in a transfer (to excitatory conditioning) test to
a CS that had been random with respect to the US than to
a CS that had simply been presented alone. According to
the Rescorla-Wagner model, the conditional probability
value of both CSs is equal. We agree with Gray (1975)
that this constitutes a refutation of the Rescorla-Wagner
position, but not because it is a contiguity position but
rather because the contingencies it specifies do not make
as precise distinctions between known sign-significate
relationship propositions as are, in fact, made by the
organism. Specifically, with the random CS the organism
learns the proposition that "This sign is a signal of the US
being completely unpredictable" (1), whereas with the
CS-alone the proposition learned is that "This sign is not
a signal for anything" (2). Now during the test (excitatory
conditioning) stage, both groups learn the proposition
that "This sign is a signal for the US" (3). To the extent
that propositions (1) and (2) are distinguishable to the
organism, the degree of contradiction between (1) and (3)
is greater than between (2) and (3). Hence, the results
emerge that are contrary to the over-simplistic RescorlaWagner model, which, how ever, is still a propositional,
representational, sign- significate, contingency model.