Leaton R N, Cranney J
Department of Psychology, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755.
J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process. 1990 Jul;16(3):279-87.
The hypothesis that the standard acoustic startle habituation paradigm contains the elements of Pavlovian fear conditioning was tested. In a potentiated startle response paradigm, a startle stimulus and a light conditioned stimulus (CS) were paired. A startle stimulus then was tested alone or following the CS. Freezing behavior was measured to index conditioned fear. The startle response was potentiated on CS trials, and rats froze more in CS than in non-CS periods. In Experiment 1, response to a previously habituated, weak startle stimulus was potentiated. In Experiment 2, response to the same stimulus used as the unconditioned stimulus (US) in training was potentiated. This CS-potentiated response retarded the course of response decrements over training sessions as compared with an explictly unpaired control group. Conditioned fear is a standard feature of this habituation paradigm, serves to potentiate the startle response, and provides an associative dimension lacking in the habituation process per se.
对标准听觉惊吓习惯化范式包含巴甫洛夫恐惧条件作用要素这一假设进行了检验。在一个惊吓反应增强范式中，将一个惊吓刺激与一个光条件刺激（CS）配对。然后单独测试一个惊吓刺激或在CS之后进行测试。测量僵住行为以指示条件性恐惧。在CS试验中惊吓反应增强，并且大鼠在CS期间比在非CS期间僵住得更多。在实验1中，对先前习惯化的弱惊吓刺激的反应增强。在实验2中，对训练中用作非条件刺激（US）的相同刺激的反应增强。与明确非配对的对照组相比，这种CS增强反应在训练过程中减缓了反应递减的进程。条件性恐惧是这种习惯化范式的一个标准特征，用于增强惊吓反应，并提供了习惯化过程本身所缺乏的联想维度。
