Kosmidis M H, Fantie B D
Laboratory of Psychology and Psychopathology, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 1995 Aug;17(4):622-33. doi: 10.1080/01688639508405150.
Like controls, a Closed-Head Injury (CHI) group learned quickly to press a button during a 3-s warning stimulus in order to avoid a noxious buzzer. In a similar task, however, the CHI group had greater difficulty achieving the learning criterion compared to controls when required to prevent an innocuous visual display (i.e., a circle). The difficulty levels of these two avoidance tasks were identical. The major differences concerned the temporal contiguity of the warning cue with the stimulus to be avoided and the intrinsic aversiveness of the buzzer compared to the appearance of a circle on a computer screen. We hypothesize that, although both tasks were operant in essential character, the buzzer may have produced a degree of classical conditioning. These results suggest that CHI survivors may have some difficulty forming connections between arbitrary stimuli when performance depends almost entirely upon conscious, effortful processing. When a stimulus is sufficiently noxious to be capable of producing an affective or autonomic response, however, automatic processes may aid in the formation of associations.
与对照组一样，闭合性颅脑损伤（CHI）组在3秒的警告刺激期间很快学会了按下按钮，以避免有害的蜂鸣声。然而，在一项类似的任务中，当需要防止无害的视觉显示（即一个圆圈）时，与对照组相比，CHI组在达到学习标准方面有更大的困难。这两项回避任务的难度水平是相同的。主要差异在于警告提示与要避免的刺激之间的时间连续性，以及与计算机屏幕上圆圈的出现相比，蜂鸣声的内在厌恶性。我们假设，尽管这两项任务在本质上都是操作性的，但蜂鸣声可能产生了一定程度的经典条件作用。这些结果表明，当表现几乎完全取决于有意识的、费力的加工时，CHI幸存者在形成任意刺激之间的联系方面可能会有一些困难。然而，当一种刺激足够有害以至于能够产生情感或自主反应时，自动加工可能有助于联想的形成。
