Woodruff-Pak D S, Thompson R F
Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122.
Psychol Aging. 1988 Sep;3(3):219-29. doi: 10.1037//0882-7974.3.3.219.
To determine if age differences in classical conditioning of the eyelid response begin to appear in middle age in humans as they do in animals, adult subjects aged 18-83 years were trained in the delay conditioning paradigm. Large age effects occurred. Statistically significant differences first appeared in the decade of the 40s. Within-age-group variability was large. To reduce variability, subjects were classified by the magnitude of their unconditioned response (UR). Regardless of age, subjects with low amplitude URs conditioned poorly. In the normal UR amplitude group, the correlation between age and total percentage conditioned responses (CRs) was -.58. Eyeblink rate and voluntary responding did not account for age differences in conditioning, and it was unlikely that hearing acuity or corneal sensitivity caused the differences. Parallels between human and animal eyelid conditioning are considered, and it is suggested that age changes in the cerebellum may affect conditioning in aging mammals, including humans.
为了确定人类眼睑反应经典条件反射中的年龄差异是否会像在动物中那样在中年时开始出现，对18至83岁的成年受试者进行了延迟条件反射范式训练。出现了较大的年龄效应。具有统计学意义的差异首先出现在40多岁这十年。年龄组内的变异性很大。为了减少变异性，根据非条件反应（UR）的幅度对受试者进行分类。无论年龄如何，UR幅度低的受试者条件反射都很差。在正常UR幅度组中，年龄与条件反应（CR）总百分比之间的相关性为-0.58。眨眼率和自主反应不能解释条件反射中的年龄差异，而且听力敏锐度或角膜敏感性不太可能导致这些差异。本文考虑了人类和动物眼睑条件反射之间的相似之处，并提出小脑的年龄变化可能会影响包括人类在内的衰老哺乳动物的条件反射。
