Electrodermal responses, subject control and delay of aversive stimulation

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different delays between a shock releasing motor response and shock (UCS) on the anticipatory and unconditioned SCRs within the subject-control paradigm, assuming a smaller degree of control with increasing delay. Four groups of 12 subjects receiving the UCS with no delay, 0.5, 2 and 6 sec delay respectively, between motor response and shock, were run together with a control group not receiving the UCS. The latter group was included to control for the effect of the motor response on the SCR. All groups were given 20 trials with signals when to perform the motor response. The results were that no or very short delay of shock produced larger first-interval anticipatory responses than longer delays. For the UCR, it was found that the effect of shock on the UCR was an increasing function of the duration of the delay, when the effect of press on the UCR magnitude was taken into account.