Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Prologue: A Historical Note on the “Discovery” of Startle Modification
- 1 Startle Modification: Introduction and Overview
- PART I BASIC PARADIGMS, METHODS, AND PHENOMENA
- PART II PHYSIOLOGICAL MEDIATION OF STARTLE MODIFICATION
- PART III PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDIATION OF STARTLE MODIFICATION
- PART IV INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND STARTLE MODIFICATION
- PART V RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER PARADIGMS AND MEASURES
- 13 Behavioral Analogies of Short Lead Interval Startle Inhibition
- 14 Event-Related Potential Components and Startle
- 15 Startle Modification during Orienting and Pavlovian Conditioning
- References
- Author Index
- Subject Index
15 - Startle Modification during Orienting and Pavlovian Conditioning
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Prologue: A Historical Note on the “Discovery” of Startle Modification
- 1 Startle Modification: Introduction and Overview
- PART I BASIC PARADIGMS, METHODS, AND PHENOMENA
- PART II PHYSIOLOGICAL MEDIATION OF STARTLE MODIFICATION
- PART III PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDIATION OF STARTLE MODIFICATION
- PART IV INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND STARTLE MODIFICATION
- PART V RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER PARADIGMS AND MEASURES
- 13 Behavioral Analogies of Short Lead Interval Startle Inhibition
- 14 Event-Related Potential Components and Startle
- 15 Startle Modification during Orienting and Pavlovian Conditioning
- References
- Author Index
- Subject Index
Summary
ABSTRACT
Startle modification at long lead intervals has been assessed during orienting to signal stimuli and during Pavlovian conditioning to investigate attentional and emotional processes in humans. The results obtained in studies of orienting are not consistent with the assertion that startle is inhibited if attentional resources are allocated to a modality that is different from the one in which the startle-eliciting stimulus is presented. Research in Pavlovian conditioning that focused on the effects of emotion on startle modification has replicated the fear-potentiated startle effect observed in nonhuman animals. Research in both realms provides strong evidence that attentional and emotional processes interact to affect startle.
Introduction
Research on associative learning has undergone considerable change during the last 30 years. The conceptual framework has shifted from the notion that associative learning, and particularly Pavlovian conditioning, involves the formation of new stimulus–response connections to a position that asserts that the conditioned response is an indication that the organism has acquired new information (Mackintosh, 1983). Within this information-processing framework, there is an emphasis on the unexpectedness of the unconditional stimulus (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972), the extent to which the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli are primed in a short-term memory store (Wagner, 1978), the relative predictive accuracy of all cues (Mackintosh, 1974), the type of processing (automatic or controlled) that is devoted to the conditioned stimulus (CS) (Pearce & Hall, 1980; Dawson & Schell, 1985), and the nature of the attentional process underlying the processing of conditioned and unconditioned stimuli (Öhman, 1983, 1992).
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- Information
- Startle ModificationImplications for Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, and Clinical Science, pp. 300 - 314Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999
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