International Elsevier
PSYCHO
Journal of Psychophysiology
1
10 (1990) l-9
00297
Review
Individual
differences
in autonomic learning: of reflection
a quarter century
Albert F. Ax Wilton Manors, FL 33334 (U.S.A.) (Accepted
Key words: Individual
difference;
Autonomic
learning;
6 June 1989)
Pavlovian conditioning; Migraine; Achievement
Operant
conditioning;
Schizophrenia;
Psychopathy;
A series of studies carried out over the past two decades has shown selected group differences in the speed and final level of learned control of various autonomic functions. The Pavlovian and operant conditioning of as many as 6 physiological variables have revealed varying ability for this form of control. Studies were performed on subject populations that included drug-free chronic schizophrenics and healthy controls, psychopathic and non-psychopathic male juvenile delinquents, and a clinical population that included migraine sufferers and persons undergoing psychotherapy. Also studied were school dropouts in vocational training, inner-city high school seniors, and junior high school students at a university school. These studies carried out on normal and abnormal individuals of strikingly different social backgrounds have lent consistent support for the hypothesis that an aptitude for autonomic learning is basic to social motivation, achievement, emotional control, and empathy.
INTRODUCTION Early in the 1960’s, soon after starting experiments with biofeedback, I became aware of large individual differences among subjects in the ability to control such physiological variables as heart rate and finger temperature. I found individual differences in the rate and degree of acquisition of control at all stages of training. Whereas one individual might succeed in raising and lowering heart rate by only one or two beats per minute on the first few trials, another might be able to raise heart rate by lo-20 beats per minute - a lo-fold difference. The research literature offers much evidence for individual differences in autonomic learning.
Correspondence: A.F. Ax, 2616 N.E. 14 Ave., Apt. Manors, FL 33334, U.S.A. 0167-8760/90/$03.50
8, Wilton
0 1990 Elsevier Science Publishers
Pavlov, in his 1927 essay, Conditioned Reflexes, described “marked individual differences in the conditioning performance of animals”. To cite from more recent investigations of this phenomenon, Wells (1973) found maximum heart rate changes in 9 human subjects to range from 1.7 to 35.2 beats per minute over 13 sessions. He also found rate of acquisition to vary greatly between subjects. A review of the experimental literature on heart rate and blood pressure biofeedback in human subjects, Williamson and Blanchard (1979) reported a range of from 5 to 20 beats per minute for heart rate increment and a range of from 1 to 10 beats per minute for heart rate decrement. Their review revealed that although self-control of heart rate did not improve with extended training, a strong relationship existed between pre-biofeedback control of heart rate and the degree of control achieved with biofeedback. It was also clear from the literature that visceral awareness of heart rate is not reliably related to control. The
B.V. (Biomedical
Division)
2
authors concluded that heart rate increment and decrement are controlled by different mechanisms. It is germane to this discussion of individual differences in autonomic function to note that higher levels of impulsivity and slower rates of conditioning have been reported in extroverted, as opposed to introverted individuals, a finding that might explain the poorer performance of the former group in the conditioning of eye-blink and the galvanic skin response (GSR) (Eysenck and Levy, 1972). Likewise, field-dependent subjects in a classical autonomic conditioning paradigm: i.e. subjects with external locus of control are less able to increase heart rate with biofeedback than are those subjects with internal locus of control (instrumental heart rate deceleration showing an opposite result, however) (Hein et al., 1966). As long ago as 1964 I speculated on what such large individual differences in autonomic learning might signify with respect to emotional and motivational characteristics (Ax, 1964). After all, these particular variables, although mediated by the autonomic nervous system, are centrally controlled by the limbic system; that is, by the emotional and motivational brain (Isaacson, 1974). Differences commonly observed between individuals in such attributes as empathy, emotional control, emotional maturity, and strength of social motives must therefore be mediated, at least in part, by this complex neuroanatomical substratum. Consequently, it seemed worthwhile to investigate the basis of these differences by studying patterns of peripheral autonomic response as manifestation of various central arousal states. Furthermore, it seemed reasonable to think of individual differences in autonomic functioning which we know to be modifiable by Pavlovian and operant conditioning - to be comparable to like differences in other physiological processes that are also modifiable by conditioning techniques. In 1964 I proposed an aptitude for autonomic learning, suggesting that this aptitude may be directly responsible for the acquisition of social (i.e. secondary) motives and the development of emotional maturity (Ax, 1964, pp. 12-13). In a 1978 paper, my colleagues and I expanded upon this theme, stating our belief that “the motivation to learn is itself learned and that the aptitude for
learning motivation. while qualitatively different, is nonetheless comparable to other aptitudes found to be randomly distributed in the population” (Ax et al., 1978, p. 217). Motivational (i.e. autonomic) learning aptitude could thus be considered comparable to, but distinct from, such dissimilar aptitudes as intellectual, athletic, or musical aptitudes. In this same 1978 paper we proposed a connection between the concept of motivational learning aptitude and earlier theories of intrinsic motivation and its contribution to personality formation: for example, the idea of personal autonomy, as advanced by Angyal (1941) or the writings of Robert W. White on competence and ‘effectance motivation’ (White, 1959). Finally, we emphasized that within this general theoretical context, the term ‘aptitude’ as measured must be considered a combination of genetic endowment and those environmental influences that allow the genetic factor to flourish. Only a few studies to date have addressed both aspects of the hypothesis, as originally put forward by me in 1964: first, the idea that autonomic learning capability expresses a specific aptitude; second, the proposition that a demonstrable aptitude for autonomic learning and successful adaptation in life are directly related phenomena. Implicit in the hypothesis is the idea that schizophrenia and psychopathy might both be associated with deficiencies in aptitude for autonomic learning. Likewise, social maladjustment and psychosomatic symptomatology might reflect a relative lack of an aptitude for autonomic learning. Finally, various forms of achievement, such as good grades in school, should be partly dependent on an aptitude for autonomic learning, student populations obviously providing an ideal test group. The following discussion is a description of the several studies undertaken to test the validity of these propositions on populations differing in age, social background, and social adjustment. Since the independent variable is motivation, the experimental paradigm does not call for control of motivation. The more our dependent variables of conditioning ability are correlated with strength of motivation, the stronger our hypothesis is supported. It might be argued that at least
3
for operant conditioning in which persuasion and conscious effort to try are usually involved, there is need to control for current motivation. We argue, on the other hand, that even this current motivation to comply with the request of the experimenter is also partly a function of the same autonomic conditioning ability and thus may not be experimentally controlled without destroying the motivation criterion we seek to correlate with the conditioning ability. We agree, however, that with schizophrenic patients who may not understand the request to try to control a physiological variable like heart rate, it would be inappropriate to employ operant conditioning. That is why we used only Pavlovian conditioning with schizophrenic patients (Ax et al., 1970). Since very few of the healthy control subjects and apparently none of the patient subjects became aware of the contingency of the pain reinforcement (US) with the significant tone (CS), we believe that the learning during the Pavlovian conditioning was unconscious and thus probably little affected by current conscious motivation. There was no request to the subjects to do anything. Autonomic learning in schizophrenia It has long been known that one of the most characteristic traits of schizophrenia is a virtual lack of empathy (Hoskins, 1946). “Empathy”, as I wrote in 1964, “may be thought of as an autonomic nervous system (ANS) state which tends to simulate that of another person. In addition to the intensity parameter, the empathic state has a dimension of accuracy; that is, the degree to which the simulated ANS pattern in the subject matches that of the object person. One’s ability to empathize accurately is probably a very important ‘reality principle’ for healthful, creative, social life” (Ax, 1964, p. 12). The schizophrenic individual seems not only to lack the ability to correctly interpret other people’s motives or intentions, but has difficulty, as well, in communicating his or her own motives, feelings, and intentions to others. The lack in schizophrenics of other social skills those basic skills required for living in society may also reflect low social motivation. The preponderance of the evidence reviewed also supports an autonomic learning impairment
hypothesis with respect to schizophrenia (Astrup, 1962; Lynn, 1963). For example, Peters and Murphree (1954) found markedly less conditioning in schizophrenic subjects than in normal individuals using differential GSR Pavlovian conditioning to electric shock. Inasmuch as there are two autonomic profiles in schizophrenia (i.e. high versus low autonomic arousal) (Cellhorn, 1957; Venables, 1960), the possibility that the high arousal type might show enhanced autonomic conditioning aptitude deserved to be explored. This question was pursued in psychophysiological studies we began in 1966 (Ax et al., 1970). A basic problem in undertaking psychological research with schizophrenic subjects is the difficulty one encounters in eliciting their cooperation. In order to overcome this difficulty, we (Ax et al., 1970) chose to use discriminative Pavlovian conditioning of 3 autonomic variables in a test paradigm in which there were no instructions, no requests to do anything at all. The schizophrenic subjects were a special research group of chronic patients that had been drug-free for several years. The control group were healthy and matched for age. As unconditional stimuli, two intensities of D.C. electrical pain stimulus were used, accompanied by two different tones as conditional stimuli. The two higher pitched tones were reinforced, during the last 6 s of their 12-s duration, by one of the two intensities of pain stimulus. Thus, the first 6-s period of a high-pitched tone provided time for a conditional physiological response to be observed. Note that the pain stimulus had a duration of 6 s and felt like heat. Likewise, discriminative conditional response was monitored during the first 6 s of the lowpitched tone (the tone which was never followed by the pain stimulus). Evidence for conditioning consisted, therefore, in the difference in mean amplitude of physiological response during the first 6 s between those stimuli followed by pain, minus the response during tone stimuli never followed by pain. The 3 physiological variables were skin conductance (GSR), skin potential (another form of the finger-sweating response), and finger pulse ampli-
4
tude (a vascular response). All 3 variables showed significant conditioning for the healthy control group, but not for the schizophrenic group. The mean group differences of the discrimination physiological conditioning scores for all 3 physiological variables were highly significant (P < 0.01). In view of the fact that the mean physiological response to the pain stimuli by the schizophrenic group was as large, and as frequent, as that seen in the normal control group, it was clear that the schizophrenics had normal autonomic nervous system responses to pain and must therefore have been equally aroused by the unconditional stimuli. The failure of schizophrenic patients to learn autonomic control by Pavlovian conditioning has been replicated (Gorham et al., 1978). Consequently, it can be argued with confidence that an impaired aptitude for autonomic learning contributes to deficient emotional maturity and empathy in schizophrenia.
Autonomic learning in psychopathy Impairment in an aptitude for autonomic learning in schizophrenia would provide a basis for generalization only if a non-schizophrenic population, not differing significantly with regard to IQ and environmental opportunity, was also found to be impaired both in this form of learning and in social achievement. Psychopathy might provide one such comparative population, in view of evidence that psychopaths and sociopaths do not condition well (Hare and Quinn, 1971). This deficiency might then be viewed as one part of a constellation of characteristics that would include genetic and acquired personality variables. It has been well substantiated, for example, that criminality has a strong genetic component. As early as 1929, Lange reported a 77% concordance for criminality in monozygotic twins, as compared to a 12% concordance in dizygotic twins. A 1977 study of 3,586 twin pairs carried out in Denmark by Christiansen showed a 35% concordance for criminal behavior for male monozygotic twins and 12% for dizygotic twins. Furthermore, studies by Crowe (1975) and Cadoret (1978) have shown that the criminal behavior of adopted children bears a significant relationship to the
antisocial behavior of their biological parents. Mednick and Hutching’s 1978 study of monozygotic twins reared apart, as well as the results of a study of 14,427 adoptees by Mednick and Fine110 (1983) have demonstrated the pervasive influence of biological (genetic) factors, particularly in those cases in which the biological father is a habitual criminal. The close association found between criminal behavior and slow GSR recovery prompted Mednick and Fine110 (1983) to suggest that slow recovery from painful or anxiety-provoking stimuli would likely interfere with adequate contingent reward and thus with effective learning. They have also proposed that a relative lack of autonomic responsivity might account for the poor ability of psychopaths to learn from repeated punishment: i.e. by not experiencing normal anxiety from having performed an antisocial act, the psychopathic individual does not receive reinforcement for inhibitory responses. Finally, it should be added that Aniskiewicz (1979) found psychopaths to produce significantly fewer vicariously instigated GSRs when viewing a stooge who was supposedly receiving strong shocks, a finding supporting the clinical impression that psychopaths have impaired empathy. In regard to conditioning, the 1971 study by Hare and Quinn reported significantly less Pavlovian GSR conditioning to shock in psychopaths, as compared to normal individuals. The psychopathic group also gave only about half as large unconditional GSR responses to shock as did normals, although no group differences in heart rate and vasomotor conditioning were found. The unconditional response (UCR) in heart rate showed an increase of only 2.0-2.5 beats per minute, which is not much above the noise level for heart rate. It must be asked why the psychopathic group should only have shown impairment in GSR conditioning but not in heart rate and vascular response? I suggest that a shock of half-second duration and of the intensity used may be an adequate UCS for the galvanic skin response, but not for heart rate and the vascular response. Another confounding aspect of this study is that heart rate showed an increase in UCR, yet a
5
general decrement in CR. It is hard to argue for a true CR when the heart rate CR shows a direction opposite to that of the UCR. Rather, the consistent decrement in heart rate was probably an habituation to repeated sounding of the tones. In line with these findings, Bennett (1983) succeeded in distinguishing between psychopathic and non-psychopathic male juvenile delinquents on the basis of autonomic learning aptitude. In a study carried out at the Dade County Juvenile Court Mental Health Clinic in Miami, Florida, he found that non-psychopathic delinquent youths (n = 20) were capable of raising and lowering their heart rate to a mean difference for the group of 13.0 beats per minute, whereas the psychopathic group (n = 20) could only produce a mean difference of 4.07 beats per minute, a highly significant between-group difference. His criteria for group classification were the professional staff’s agreement (a psychiatrist, two clinical psychologists and a social worker) based on psychological tests, crime record, presence or lack of guilt, and degree of viciousness involved in violent, criminal acts. It is important to note that on subsequent retest of these same subjects, the psychophysiological measures not only held true for both the psychopathic and non-psychopathic groups, but were found to be predictive of antisocial behaviors on the part of the psychopathic group during the intervening period (L.J. Bennett, personal communication, March 5, 1986). Motivation is a basic consideration in operant conditioning. Unlike Pavlovian conditioning, which may require no conscious motivation, operant conditioning, as we practiced it in biofeedback, depends upon the understanding and cooperation of the subject to comply with the experimenter’s requests: e.g. to attempt to raise and lower heart rate. In view of the fact that psychopaths are notoriously deficient in fulfilling social demands, they might well be expected to ignore instructions in the experimental setting. If, however, the poor social motivation of the psychopath is a consequence of low autonomic learning aptitude, the two, social motivation and autonomic learning aptitude, are inevitably linked and it may be impossible and inappropriate to try to separate.
Autonomic learning aptitude in psychosomatic illness and emotional disturbance The concept of autonomic learning aptitude as a measure of motivation has received collateral support in 3 unpublished doctoral studies. Kirzner (1974) carried out an operant conditioning study on migraine headache patients, using heart rate self control as the dependent measure. He found migraine patients less able than healthy subjects to control heart rate before biofeedback training. With extended biofeedback training, however, the patient group achieved a degree of control similar to that of the healthy group of subjects. This outcome suggested both that this particular psychosomatic disorder is treatable with biofeedback and that migraine sufferers might not be utilizing an aptitude for controlling those physiological variables essential for avoiding headaches. Shaw (1974) used operant (biofeedback) control of heart rate training to test the degree to which autonomic learning might relate to motivation for psychotherapy. Each therapist was asked to rate patients on their motivation for therapy. Other studies using this index of motivation for therapy had shown it to be highly correlated with improvement in therapy. As predicted, those patients rated as having higher motivation for therapy were better able to control heart rate to a significant degree. Lastly, Cornette (1977) conducted a biofeedback heart rate study comparing patients in psychotherapy with a matched control group who had never been in psychotherapy. Cornette’s hypothesis that those individuals in therapy would show impaired autonomic learning was strongly supported. Interpretation of these 3 studies must remain tentative, each of the 3 requiring replication. Nevertheless, each study statistically significantly supports the premise that persons with psychosomatic involvement and problems of adjustment might, on the average, and within the constraints of environmental influence, have a lower aptitude for autonomic learning. Further, these studies indicate that this particular learning deficiency is likely to be expressed in a lower aptitude for acquiring the secondary motives that are basic to successful
6
adaptation in life. It follows that, by these motives less readily, such individuals strate to a lesser degree the emotional and interpersonal empathy essential for logical and physical health.
learning demonmaturity psycho-
Autonomic learning in normal adolescent student populations Taking advantage of a social framework in which motivation is acknowledged to play a decisive role, Ax and Bamford (1968) conducted a study of high school dropouts. These subjects were enrolled in a federally-funded, inner-city vocational training school. About half of the enrolled students tended to drop out of this vocational school, even though they were not only paid to attend, but were guaranteed employment following completion of their training. Teachers at this school were of the opinion that the dropout rate reflected a lack of motivation, rather than lack of intelligence. We therefore based our subject groupings on the ratings of student motivation by 3 teachers over a 3-month period and postulated that those youths in the low motivation group would show poorer autonomic conditioning than would those in the high motivation group. Teacher evaluation provided groupings of 32 high and 31 low motivation subjects, about equally divided between male and female, all of them black. The physiological variables measured were skin conductance, skin potential, finger pulse amplitude, respiration, and heart rate. All subjects were given an extensive battery of psychological tests, including IQ, Level of Aspiration, Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, 16-PF, a neuroticism scale, neurotic disability level, an interview for medical history, work history, and social environmental incentive level. The physiological examination consisted of a discriminative Pavlovian conditioning paradigm. A series of 20 tones of two different pitches were sounded for 12 s. The 10 higher pitched tones were always reinforced during the final 4 s and the 10 lower pitched tones were never reinforced. The reinforcement was a 4-s D.C. electric current to the toes that felt like heat just beginning to become painful at the end of the 4 s. During the first
8 s before the reinforcement period each physiological variable was examined for a possible response. The conditional response score was the average physiological response to the reinforced tone minus that of the unreinforced tone. As postulated, the high motivation group attained significantly higher conditioning scores. Yet, neither the psychological test for anxiety, nor those for neuroticism, could account for the differences between groups. Moreover, it was notable that physiological conditioning scores and IQ showed a complete lack of correlation over the entire group. These data provide solid evidence that the psychophysiological measures of conditioning were not merely another measure of IQ. In the post-test interview about 60% of the subjects said they were unaware of the tone-pain contingency, without a significant difference between the two experimental groups. Awareness, however, was a potent factor in physiological discrimination response. Interestingly, among the aware group discrimination by physiological conditioning between the high and low motivation groups was even greater than among the unaware group. These studies of Pavlovian conditioning of autonomic variables undertaken thus far support the notion that there did indeed exist an aptitude for learning social motives and that this aptitude could be measured by conditioning techniques. Nevertheless, it remained open to question whether operant conditioning would provide an even more predictive test, inasmuch as it could measure both the aptitude for learning motivation and the extent of current motivation in a controlled experimental situation. In our next study (Ax et al., 1978) we added operant conditioning and studied 106 black high school seniors, defining achievement, in this instance, as grade point average regressed on IQ. Of the 99 subjects with satisfactory scores, the 50 whose residual scores fell above the regression line were defined as high achievers, the 49 whose scores fell below the regression line as low achievers. Grade point average (without considering IQ) produced very similar results, given the fact that the correlation between grade point average (GPA) and the regressed achievement scores was 0.856.
7
Subjects were tested in two physiological conditioning sessions: a Pavlovian conditioning session, using pain and tone stimuli as before, and a second session of operant conditioning in which subjects were requested to try to raise and lower heart rate with biofeedback and verbal encouragement. Heart rate was the target variable, but 5 other physiological variables were also continuously recorded: respiration, finger plethysmogram, frontalis muscle tension, skin conductance, and skin potential. Thus, in effect, conditioning of a spectrum of autonomic function was being examined, not merely heart rate. Conditioning scores of skin potential increment and heart rate decrement (previously found to be significant) were replicated. However, the Pavlovian conditioning skin conductance scores (which had been significantly greater for the high-achieving group in the previous study) were not significant this time. Also, the operant conditioning for skin conductance was significantly greater for the low achievement group. These higher skin conductance responses were interpreted as reflecting the greater anxiety manifested by the low-achieving subjects (i.e. more GSRs and muscle tension). All other operant conditioning scores were robust and in the expected direction. As previously found high-achieving subjects earned higher conditioning scores on skin potential, finger pulse and heart rate. Two additional conditioning scores not previously analyzed (skin potential decrement and respiration rate increment conditioning scores) were likewise greater for the high-achieving subjects. In 1978, Barnes and Ax (unpublished manuscript) had an opportunity to replicate these results - results derived, as we have explained, from an urban, black, high-school population - now in a group of middle-class, white, junior high school students at a university school noted for its high intellectual standards. Fortuitously, grades at this school, were assigned on the basis of motivation, rather than of achievement. Thus, a bright student, doing average work, would earn a low grade. Conversely, a student with average IQ, turning in excellent work, would earn a high grade. That the teaching staff carried out their policy to the letter
was evident in the fact that there was zero correlation between IQ scores and grades, in contrast to the usual correlation of between 0.4 and 0.5 commonly recorded in regular public schools. Grade point average in this university school therefore represented an ideal index of motivation. The results of this study were significant. For Pavlovian conditioning, heart rate decrement and finger pulse conditioning scores were greater for the high motivation group - much as had been found in inner-city high school seniors (Ax et al., 1978). For operant conditioning, the results were also robust, and clear cut, being significantly larger for the high motivation group for heart rate (high versus low) and number of GSR’s.
DISCUSSION We have reviewed an extensive body of research that has defined a relationship between social learning, i.e., learning of the secondary motives, and a physiological learning aptitude that can be measured by both Pavlovian and operant conditioning of autonomic variables. We have seen that measurement of this aptitude is not straightforward, inasmuch as the physiological manifestations of anxiety may distort target responses in the conditioning paradigm and so influence outcome in both highly motivated and less motivated subjects, depending upon their level of motivation and environmental situation. There is still much research to be done in this field. We need experimental answers to such questions as whether there are different kinds or aspects of this aptitude for learning motivation; do different types of motivation such as excellence in various branches of knowledge for various skills and for the social skills of honesty, sympathy, empathy and emotional control and maturity require variations in the aptitude? Or is there one overriding motivation for competence in whatever one strives for as Robert W. White has suggested? Do the various physiological variables under control of the autonomic nervous system differ in their ability to reveal the aptitude? When the aptitude for learning motivation has been as intensively studied as has that of intelligence, I suspect it will be
8 revealed to be as important as IQ to measure and cultivate. Even though one usually thinks that an aptitude is primarily determined by genetics, clearly environmental influences of education, training, and cultural milieu are necessary for its full development. The unanswered question whether the deficient autonomic learning is the cause of the low social motivation or is caused by the low social motivation or possibly both are caused by some third condition remains for future research. Of course the ultimate cause is not known at this early stage of research on autonomic learning. Ordinary IQ tests do not purport to answer that question either, yet no-one doubts the value of IQ nor of the many studies that show how they correlate with school performance. Only if research continues can these ultimate causes be discovered. Another frequent criticism is the low correlation between autonomic variables. As is well known subtests should correlate low with each other but high with the criterion. We must think of the various autonomic variables as subtests. why they often correlate low with each other is probably due to the considerable differentiation within both the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. These unanswered questions notwithstanding, human motivational and emotional learning aptitude would appear to be a distinct aptitude. Moreover, this series of studies has shown it may be an aptitude as important to the furtherance of general social tranquility as to the successful social adjustment of the individual. I believe that great effort should be made to study this aptitude, to understand it, and eventually - if we are to be so fortunate - to learn to enhance its development in every possible way.
REFERENCES Angyal, A. (1941) Foundations for a Science of Personality. The Commonwealth Fund, New York. Aniskiewicz, A.S. (1979) Autonomic components of vicarious conditioning and psychopathy. J. Clin. PsychoI., 35: 60-67. Astrup, C. (1962) Schizophrenra Conditional RefIex Studies, Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, IL. Ax, A.F. (1964) Goals and methods in psychophysiology. Psychophysiology. 1: 8-25.
Ax, A.F. and Bamford, J.L. (1968) Validation of a psychophysiological test of aptitude for learning social motives. Psychophysiology, 5: 316-332. Ax, A.F., Bamford, J.L., Beckett, P.G.S., Fretz, N.F., & Gottlieb, J.S. (1970) Autonomic conditioning in chronic schizophrenia. J. Abnormal Psychol., 76: 140-154. Ax, A.F., Lloyd, R., Gorham, J.C., Lootens, A.M. and Robinson, R. (1978) Autonomic learning: a measure of motivation. Motivation and Emotion, 2: 213-242. Barnes, J. and Ax, A.F. (1978) Exammation of a Physiological Measure of Achievement Motivation, unpublished manuscript, Nova University, Fort Lauderdale. Bennett, L. (1983) A Psychophysiological Study of Heart Rate Control in Psychopathic Juvenile Delinquents, doctoral dissertation, Nova University. Cadoret, T.J. (1978) Psychopathy in adopted-away offspring of biological parents with antisocial behavior. Arch. Gen. Ps_vchiatry, 35: 176-184. Christiansen, K.O. (1977) A preliminary study of criminality among twins. In S.A. Mednick and K.O. Christiansen (Eds.), Blosoclal Basis of Criminal Behavior Gardner. New York, pp. 88-108. Cornette, R.A. (1977) The Aptitude for Social Learning as shown by Therapy Versus Non-therapy Subjects, Doctoral dissertation, University of Detroit. Crowe, R. (1975) An adoptive study of psychopathy: preliminary results from arrest records and psychiatric hospital records. In R. Fieve, D. Rosenthal and H. Brill (Eds.), Genetic Research in Ps_vchiatry. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, pp. 326-341. Eysenck, H.J. and Levy, A. (1972) Conditioning, introversionextroversion and the strength of the nervous system. In V.D. Nebyhtzen and J.A. Gray (Eds.), Biological Eases of Individual Behavior, Academic, New York, pp. 206-220. Gellhorn, E. (1957) Autonomic Imbalance and the Hypothalamus. University of Minnesota Press. Minneapolis. Gorham, J.C., Novelly, R.A., Ax, A.F. and Frohman, C.E. (1978) Classically conditioned autonomic discrimination and tryptophan uptake in chronic schizophrenia. Psychophyslologv, 15: 158-164. Hare. R.D. and Quinn. M.J. (1971) Psychopathy and autonomic conditioning. J. Abnormal PsychoI., 77: 223-235. Hein, P.L., Cohen, S.F. and Shmavonian, B.M. (1966) Perceptual mode and cardiac conditioning. Psychophystologv, 3: 101-107. Hoskins. R.G. (1946) The Biology of Schizophrenia, W.W. Norton, New York. Isaacson, R.L. (1974) The Limblc Svstem. Plenum, New York. Kirzner, G. (1974) Migraine: A study of psychophysiological and personality correlates, doctoral dissertation, University of Detroit. Lange, J. (1929) Verbrechen afs Schiskal, George Thieme Leipzig, Unwin Brothers, London. Lynn, R. (1963) Russian theory and research on schizophrenia. Psychol. Bull., 60: 486-498. Mednick, S.A. and Finello. K.M. (1983) Biological factors and crime: implications for forensic psychiatry. Int. J. Law, Psychiatry, 6: l-15.
9 Mednick, S.A. and Hutchings, B. (1978) Genetic and psychophysiological factors in asocial behavior. Am. Acad. Child Psychiatry, 17: 209-223. Pavlov, I.P. (1927) Conditioned Reflexes, Oxford University Press, London, (transl. C.V. Anrep). Peters, H.N. and Murphree, O.D. (1954) The conditioned reflex activity in the chronic schizophrenic. J. Clin. PsychoI., 10: 126-130. Shaw, R. (1974) Validation of a Psychophysiological Test of Motivation for Psychotherapy, doctoral dissertation, University of Detroit.
Venables, P.H. (1960) The effect of auditory and visual stimulation on skin potential response of schizophrenia. Brain, 83: 71-92. Wells, D.T. (1973) Large magnitude voluntary heart rate changes. Psychophysiology, 10: 260-269. White, R.W. (1959) Motivation reconsidered: the concept of competence. Psychol. Rev., 66: 291-333. Williamson, D.A. and Blanchard, E.B. (1979) Heart rate and blood pressure biofeedback. I. A review of the recent experimental literature. Biofeedback, Self-Regul., 4: l-34.
PSYCHO
Journal of Psychophysiology
1
10 (1990) l-9
00297
Review
Individual
differences
in autonomic learning: of reflection
a quarter century
Albert F. Ax Wilton Manors, FL 33334 (U.S.A.) (Accepted
Key words: Individual
difference;
Autonomic
learning;
6 June 1989)
Pavlovian conditioning; Migraine; Achievement
Operant
conditioning;
Schizophrenia;
Psychopathy;
A series of studies carried out over the past two decades has shown selected group differences in the speed and final level of learned control of various autonomic functions. The Pavlovian and operant conditioning of as many as 6 physiological variables have revealed varying ability for this form of control. Studies were performed on subject populations that included drug-free chronic schizophrenics and healthy controls, psychopathic and non-psychopathic male juvenile delinquents, and a clinical population that included migraine sufferers and persons undergoing psychotherapy. Also studied were school dropouts in vocational training, inner-city high school seniors, and junior high school students at a university school. These studies carried out on normal and abnormal individuals of strikingly different social backgrounds have lent consistent support for the hypothesis that an aptitude for autonomic learning is basic to social motivation, achievement, emotional control, and empathy.
INTRODUCTION Early in the 1960’s, soon after starting experiments with biofeedback, I became aware of large individual differences among subjects in the ability to control such physiological variables as heart rate and finger temperature. I found individual differences in the rate and degree of acquisition of control at all stages of training. Whereas one individual might succeed in raising and lowering heart rate by only one or two beats per minute on the first few trials, another might be able to raise heart rate by lo-20 beats per minute - a lo-fold difference. The research literature offers much evidence for individual differences in autonomic learning.
Correspondence: A.F. Ax, 2616 N.E. 14 Ave., Apt. Manors, FL 33334, U.S.A. 0167-8760/90/$03.50
8, Wilton
0 1990 Elsevier Science Publishers
Pavlov, in his 1927 essay, Conditioned Reflexes, described “marked individual differences in the conditioning performance of animals”. To cite from more recent investigations of this phenomenon, Wells (1973) found maximum heart rate changes in 9 human subjects to range from 1.7 to 35.2 beats per minute over 13 sessions. He also found rate of acquisition to vary greatly between subjects. A review of the experimental literature on heart rate and blood pressure biofeedback in human subjects, Williamson and Blanchard (1979) reported a range of from 5 to 20 beats per minute for heart rate increment and a range of from 1 to 10 beats per minute for heart rate decrement. Their review revealed that although self-control of heart rate did not improve with extended training, a strong relationship existed between pre-biofeedback control of heart rate and the degree of control achieved with biofeedback. It was also clear from the literature that visceral awareness of heart rate is not reliably related to control. The
B.V. (Biomedical
Division)
2
authors concluded that heart rate increment and decrement are controlled by different mechanisms. It is germane to this discussion of individual differences in autonomic function to note that higher levels of impulsivity and slower rates of conditioning have been reported in extroverted, as opposed to introverted individuals, a finding that might explain the poorer performance of the former group in the conditioning of eye-blink and the galvanic skin response (GSR) (Eysenck and Levy, 1972). Likewise, field-dependent subjects in a classical autonomic conditioning paradigm: i.e. subjects with external locus of control are less able to increase heart rate with biofeedback than are those subjects with internal locus of control (instrumental heart rate deceleration showing an opposite result, however) (Hein et al., 1966). As long ago as 1964 I speculated on what such large individual differences in autonomic learning might signify with respect to emotional and motivational characteristics (Ax, 1964). After all, these particular variables, although mediated by the autonomic nervous system, are centrally controlled by the limbic system; that is, by the emotional and motivational brain (Isaacson, 1974). Differences commonly observed between individuals in such attributes as empathy, emotional control, emotional maturity, and strength of social motives must therefore be mediated, at least in part, by this complex neuroanatomical substratum. Consequently, it seemed worthwhile to investigate the basis of these differences by studying patterns of peripheral autonomic response as manifestation of various central arousal states. Furthermore, it seemed reasonable to think of individual differences in autonomic functioning which we know to be modifiable by Pavlovian and operant conditioning - to be comparable to like differences in other physiological processes that are also modifiable by conditioning techniques. In 1964 I proposed an aptitude for autonomic learning, suggesting that this aptitude may be directly responsible for the acquisition of social (i.e. secondary) motives and the development of emotional maturity (Ax, 1964, pp. 12-13). In a 1978 paper, my colleagues and I expanded upon this theme, stating our belief that “the motivation to learn is itself learned and that the aptitude for
learning motivation. while qualitatively different, is nonetheless comparable to other aptitudes found to be randomly distributed in the population” (Ax et al., 1978, p. 217). Motivational (i.e. autonomic) learning aptitude could thus be considered comparable to, but distinct from, such dissimilar aptitudes as intellectual, athletic, or musical aptitudes. In this same 1978 paper we proposed a connection between the concept of motivational learning aptitude and earlier theories of intrinsic motivation and its contribution to personality formation: for example, the idea of personal autonomy, as advanced by Angyal (1941) or the writings of Robert W. White on competence and ‘effectance motivation’ (White, 1959). Finally, we emphasized that within this general theoretical context, the term ‘aptitude’ as measured must be considered a combination of genetic endowment and those environmental influences that allow the genetic factor to flourish. Only a few studies to date have addressed both aspects of the hypothesis, as originally put forward by me in 1964: first, the idea that autonomic learning capability expresses a specific aptitude; second, the proposition that a demonstrable aptitude for autonomic learning and successful adaptation in life are directly related phenomena. Implicit in the hypothesis is the idea that schizophrenia and psychopathy might both be associated with deficiencies in aptitude for autonomic learning. Likewise, social maladjustment and psychosomatic symptomatology might reflect a relative lack of an aptitude for autonomic learning. Finally, various forms of achievement, such as good grades in school, should be partly dependent on an aptitude for autonomic learning, student populations obviously providing an ideal test group. The following discussion is a description of the several studies undertaken to test the validity of these propositions on populations differing in age, social background, and social adjustment. Since the independent variable is motivation, the experimental paradigm does not call for control of motivation. The more our dependent variables of conditioning ability are correlated with strength of motivation, the stronger our hypothesis is supported. It might be argued that at least
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for operant conditioning in which persuasion and conscious effort to try are usually involved, there is need to control for current motivation. We argue, on the other hand, that even this current motivation to comply with the request of the experimenter is also partly a function of the same autonomic conditioning ability and thus may not be experimentally controlled without destroying the motivation criterion we seek to correlate with the conditioning ability. We agree, however, that with schizophrenic patients who may not understand the request to try to control a physiological variable like heart rate, it would be inappropriate to employ operant conditioning. That is why we used only Pavlovian conditioning with schizophrenic patients (Ax et al., 1970). Since very few of the healthy control subjects and apparently none of the patient subjects became aware of the contingency of the pain reinforcement (US) with the significant tone (CS), we believe that the learning during the Pavlovian conditioning was unconscious and thus probably little affected by current conscious motivation. There was no request to the subjects to do anything. Autonomic learning in schizophrenia It has long been known that one of the most characteristic traits of schizophrenia is a virtual lack of empathy (Hoskins, 1946). “Empathy”, as I wrote in 1964, “may be thought of as an autonomic nervous system (ANS) state which tends to simulate that of another person. In addition to the intensity parameter, the empathic state has a dimension of accuracy; that is, the degree to which the simulated ANS pattern in the subject matches that of the object person. One’s ability to empathize accurately is probably a very important ‘reality principle’ for healthful, creative, social life” (Ax, 1964, p. 12). The schizophrenic individual seems not only to lack the ability to correctly interpret other people’s motives or intentions, but has difficulty, as well, in communicating his or her own motives, feelings, and intentions to others. The lack in schizophrenics of other social skills those basic skills required for living in society may also reflect low social motivation. The preponderance of the evidence reviewed also supports an autonomic learning impairment
hypothesis with respect to schizophrenia (Astrup, 1962; Lynn, 1963). For example, Peters and Murphree (1954) found markedly less conditioning in schizophrenic subjects than in normal individuals using differential GSR Pavlovian conditioning to electric shock. Inasmuch as there are two autonomic profiles in schizophrenia (i.e. high versus low autonomic arousal) (Cellhorn, 1957; Venables, 1960), the possibility that the high arousal type might show enhanced autonomic conditioning aptitude deserved to be explored. This question was pursued in psychophysiological studies we began in 1966 (Ax et al., 1970). A basic problem in undertaking psychological research with schizophrenic subjects is the difficulty one encounters in eliciting their cooperation. In order to overcome this difficulty, we (Ax et al., 1970) chose to use discriminative Pavlovian conditioning of 3 autonomic variables in a test paradigm in which there were no instructions, no requests to do anything at all. The schizophrenic subjects were a special research group of chronic patients that had been drug-free for several years. The control group were healthy and matched for age. As unconditional stimuli, two intensities of D.C. electrical pain stimulus were used, accompanied by two different tones as conditional stimuli. The two higher pitched tones were reinforced, during the last 6 s of their 12-s duration, by one of the two intensities of pain stimulus. Thus, the first 6-s period of a high-pitched tone provided time for a conditional physiological response to be observed. Note that the pain stimulus had a duration of 6 s and felt like heat. Likewise, discriminative conditional response was monitored during the first 6 s of the lowpitched tone (the tone which was never followed by the pain stimulus). Evidence for conditioning consisted, therefore, in the difference in mean amplitude of physiological response during the first 6 s between those stimuli followed by pain, minus the response during tone stimuli never followed by pain. The 3 physiological variables were skin conductance (GSR), skin potential (another form of the finger-sweating response), and finger pulse ampli-
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tude (a vascular response). All 3 variables showed significant conditioning for the healthy control group, but not for the schizophrenic group. The mean group differences of the discrimination physiological conditioning scores for all 3 physiological variables were highly significant (P < 0.01). In view of the fact that the mean physiological response to the pain stimuli by the schizophrenic group was as large, and as frequent, as that seen in the normal control group, it was clear that the schizophrenics had normal autonomic nervous system responses to pain and must therefore have been equally aroused by the unconditional stimuli. The failure of schizophrenic patients to learn autonomic control by Pavlovian conditioning has been replicated (Gorham et al., 1978). Consequently, it can be argued with confidence that an impaired aptitude for autonomic learning contributes to deficient emotional maturity and empathy in schizophrenia.
Autonomic learning in psychopathy Impairment in an aptitude for autonomic learning in schizophrenia would provide a basis for generalization only if a non-schizophrenic population, not differing significantly with regard to IQ and environmental opportunity, was also found to be impaired both in this form of learning and in social achievement. Psychopathy might provide one such comparative population, in view of evidence that psychopaths and sociopaths do not condition well (Hare and Quinn, 1971). This deficiency might then be viewed as one part of a constellation of characteristics that would include genetic and acquired personality variables. It has been well substantiated, for example, that criminality has a strong genetic component. As early as 1929, Lange reported a 77% concordance for criminality in monozygotic twins, as compared to a 12% concordance in dizygotic twins. A 1977 study of 3,586 twin pairs carried out in Denmark by Christiansen showed a 35% concordance for criminal behavior for male monozygotic twins and 12% for dizygotic twins. Furthermore, studies by Crowe (1975) and Cadoret (1978) have shown that the criminal behavior of adopted children bears a significant relationship to the
antisocial behavior of their biological parents. Mednick and Hutching’s 1978 study of monozygotic twins reared apart, as well as the results of a study of 14,427 adoptees by Mednick and Fine110 (1983) have demonstrated the pervasive influence of biological (genetic) factors, particularly in those cases in which the biological father is a habitual criminal. The close association found between criminal behavior and slow GSR recovery prompted Mednick and Fine110 (1983) to suggest that slow recovery from painful or anxiety-provoking stimuli would likely interfere with adequate contingent reward and thus with effective learning. They have also proposed that a relative lack of autonomic responsivity might account for the poor ability of psychopaths to learn from repeated punishment: i.e. by not experiencing normal anxiety from having performed an antisocial act, the psychopathic individual does not receive reinforcement for inhibitory responses. Finally, it should be added that Aniskiewicz (1979) found psychopaths to produce significantly fewer vicariously instigated GSRs when viewing a stooge who was supposedly receiving strong shocks, a finding supporting the clinical impression that psychopaths have impaired empathy. In regard to conditioning, the 1971 study by Hare and Quinn reported significantly less Pavlovian GSR conditioning to shock in psychopaths, as compared to normal individuals. The psychopathic group also gave only about half as large unconditional GSR responses to shock as did normals, although no group differences in heart rate and vasomotor conditioning were found. The unconditional response (UCR) in heart rate showed an increase of only 2.0-2.5 beats per minute, which is not much above the noise level for heart rate. It must be asked why the psychopathic group should only have shown impairment in GSR conditioning but not in heart rate and vascular response? I suggest that a shock of half-second duration and of the intensity used may be an adequate UCS for the galvanic skin response, but not for heart rate and the vascular response. Another confounding aspect of this study is that heart rate showed an increase in UCR, yet a
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general decrement in CR. It is hard to argue for a true CR when the heart rate CR shows a direction opposite to that of the UCR. Rather, the consistent decrement in heart rate was probably an habituation to repeated sounding of the tones. In line with these findings, Bennett (1983) succeeded in distinguishing between psychopathic and non-psychopathic male juvenile delinquents on the basis of autonomic learning aptitude. In a study carried out at the Dade County Juvenile Court Mental Health Clinic in Miami, Florida, he found that non-psychopathic delinquent youths (n = 20) were capable of raising and lowering their heart rate to a mean difference for the group of 13.0 beats per minute, whereas the psychopathic group (n = 20) could only produce a mean difference of 4.07 beats per minute, a highly significant between-group difference. His criteria for group classification were the professional staff’s agreement (a psychiatrist, two clinical psychologists and a social worker) based on psychological tests, crime record, presence or lack of guilt, and degree of viciousness involved in violent, criminal acts. It is important to note that on subsequent retest of these same subjects, the psychophysiological measures not only held true for both the psychopathic and non-psychopathic groups, but were found to be predictive of antisocial behaviors on the part of the psychopathic group during the intervening period (L.J. Bennett, personal communication, March 5, 1986). Motivation is a basic consideration in operant conditioning. Unlike Pavlovian conditioning, which may require no conscious motivation, operant conditioning, as we practiced it in biofeedback, depends upon the understanding and cooperation of the subject to comply with the experimenter’s requests: e.g. to attempt to raise and lower heart rate. In view of the fact that psychopaths are notoriously deficient in fulfilling social demands, they might well be expected to ignore instructions in the experimental setting. If, however, the poor social motivation of the psychopath is a consequence of low autonomic learning aptitude, the two, social motivation and autonomic learning aptitude, are inevitably linked and it may be impossible and inappropriate to try to separate.
Autonomic learning aptitude in psychosomatic illness and emotional disturbance The concept of autonomic learning aptitude as a measure of motivation has received collateral support in 3 unpublished doctoral studies. Kirzner (1974) carried out an operant conditioning study on migraine headache patients, using heart rate self control as the dependent measure. He found migraine patients less able than healthy subjects to control heart rate before biofeedback training. With extended biofeedback training, however, the patient group achieved a degree of control similar to that of the healthy group of subjects. This outcome suggested both that this particular psychosomatic disorder is treatable with biofeedback and that migraine sufferers might not be utilizing an aptitude for controlling those physiological variables essential for avoiding headaches. Shaw (1974) used operant (biofeedback) control of heart rate training to test the degree to which autonomic learning might relate to motivation for psychotherapy. Each therapist was asked to rate patients on their motivation for therapy. Other studies using this index of motivation for therapy had shown it to be highly correlated with improvement in therapy. As predicted, those patients rated as having higher motivation for therapy were better able to control heart rate to a significant degree. Lastly, Cornette (1977) conducted a biofeedback heart rate study comparing patients in psychotherapy with a matched control group who had never been in psychotherapy. Cornette’s hypothesis that those individuals in therapy would show impaired autonomic learning was strongly supported. Interpretation of these 3 studies must remain tentative, each of the 3 requiring replication. Nevertheless, each study statistically significantly supports the premise that persons with psychosomatic involvement and problems of adjustment might, on the average, and within the constraints of environmental influence, have a lower aptitude for autonomic learning. Further, these studies indicate that this particular learning deficiency is likely to be expressed in a lower aptitude for acquiring the secondary motives that are basic to successful
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adaptation in life. It follows that, by these motives less readily, such individuals strate to a lesser degree the emotional and interpersonal empathy essential for logical and physical health.
learning demonmaturity psycho-
Autonomic learning in normal adolescent student populations Taking advantage of a social framework in which motivation is acknowledged to play a decisive role, Ax and Bamford (1968) conducted a study of high school dropouts. These subjects were enrolled in a federally-funded, inner-city vocational training school. About half of the enrolled students tended to drop out of this vocational school, even though they were not only paid to attend, but were guaranteed employment following completion of their training. Teachers at this school were of the opinion that the dropout rate reflected a lack of motivation, rather than lack of intelligence. We therefore based our subject groupings on the ratings of student motivation by 3 teachers over a 3-month period and postulated that those youths in the low motivation group would show poorer autonomic conditioning than would those in the high motivation group. Teacher evaluation provided groupings of 32 high and 31 low motivation subjects, about equally divided between male and female, all of them black. The physiological variables measured were skin conductance, skin potential, finger pulse amplitude, respiration, and heart rate. All subjects were given an extensive battery of psychological tests, including IQ, Level of Aspiration, Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, 16-PF, a neuroticism scale, neurotic disability level, an interview for medical history, work history, and social environmental incentive level. The physiological examination consisted of a discriminative Pavlovian conditioning paradigm. A series of 20 tones of two different pitches were sounded for 12 s. The 10 higher pitched tones were always reinforced during the final 4 s and the 10 lower pitched tones were never reinforced. The reinforcement was a 4-s D.C. electric current to the toes that felt like heat just beginning to become painful at the end of the 4 s. During the first
8 s before the reinforcement period each physiological variable was examined for a possible response. The conditional response score was the average physiological response to the reinforced tone minus that of the unreinforced tone. As postulated, the high motivation group attained significantly higher conditioning scores. Yet, neither the psychological test for anxiety, nor those for neuroticism, could account for the differences between groups. Moreover, it was notable that physiological conditioning scores and IQ showed a complete lack of correlation over the entire group. These data provide solid evidence that the psychophysiological measures of conditioning were not merely another measure of IQ. In the post-test interview about 60% of the subjects said they were unaware of the tone-pain contingency, without a significant difference between the two experimental groups. Awareness, however, was a potent factor in physiological discrimination response. Interestingly, among the aware group discrimination by physiological conditioning between the high and low motivation groups was even greater than among the unaware group. These studies of Pavlovian conditioning of autonomic variables undertaken thus far support the notion that there did indeed exist an aptitude for learning social motives and that this aptitude could be measured by conditioning techniques. Nevertheless, it remained open to question whether operant conditioning would provide an even more predictive test, inasmuch as it could measure both the aptitude for learning motivation and the extent of current motivation in a controlled experimental situation. In our next study (Ax et al., 1978) we added operant conditioning and studied 106 black high school seniors, defining achievement, in this instance, as grade point average regressed on IQ. Of the 99 subjects with satisfactory scores, the 50 whose residual scores fell above the regression line were defined as high achievers, the 49 whose scores fell below the regression line as low achievers. Grade point average (without considering IQ) produced very similar results, given the fact that the correlation between grade point average (GPA) and the regressed achievement scores was 0.856.
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Subjects were tested in two physiological conditioning sessions: a Pavlovian conditioning session, using pain and tone stimuli as before, and a second session of operant conditioning in which subjects were requested to try to raise and lower heart rate with biofeedback and verbal encouragement. Heart rate was the target variable, but 5 other physiological variables were also continuously recorded: respiration, finger plethysmogram, frontalis muscle tension, skin conductance, and skin potential. Thus, in effect, conditioning of a spectrum of autonomic function was being examined, not merely heart rate. Conditioning scores of skin potential increment and heart rate decrement (previously found to be significant) were replicated. However, the Pavlovian conditioning skin conductance scores (which had been significantly greater for the high-achieving group in the previous study) were not significant this time. Also, the operant conditioning for skin conductance was significantly greater for the low achievement group. These higher skin conductance responses were interpreted as reflecting the greater anxiety manifested by the low-achieving subjects (i.e. more GSRs and muscle tension). All other operant conditioning scores were robust and in the expected direction. As previously found high-achieving subjects earned higher conditioning scores on skin potential, finger pulse and heart rate. Two additional conditioning scores not previously analyzed (skin potential decrement and respiration rate increment conditioning scores) were likewise greater for the high-achieving subjects. In 1978, Barnes and Ax (unpublished manuscript) had an opportunity to replicate these results - results derived, as we have explained, from an urban, black, high-school population - now in a group of middle-class, white, junior high school students at a university school noted for its high intellectual standards. Fortuitously, grades at this school, were assigned on the basis of motivation, rather than of achievement. Thus, a bright student, doing average work, would earn a low grade. Conversely, a student with average IQ, turning in excellent work, would earn a high grade. That the teaching staff carried out their policy to the letter
was evident in the fact that there was zero correlation between IQ scores and grades, in contrast to the usual correlation of between 0.4 and 0.5 commonly recorded in regular public schools. Grade point average in this university school therefore represented an ideal index of motivation. The results of this study were significant. For Pavlovian conditioning, heart rate decrement and finger pulse conditioning scores were greater for the high motivation group - much as had been found in inner-city high school seniors (Ax et al., 1978). For operant conditioning, the results were also robust, and clear cut, being significantly larger for the high motivation group for heart rate (high versus low) and number of GSR’s.
DISCUSSION We have reviewed an extensive body of research that has defined a relationship between social learning, i.e., learning of the secondary motives, and a physiological learning aptitude that can be measured by both Pavlovian and operant conditioning of autonomic variables. We have seen that measurement of this aptitude is not straightforward, inasmuch as the physiological manifestations of anxiety may distort target responses in the conditioning paradigm and so influence outcome in both highly motivated and less motivated subjects, depending upon their level of motivation and environmental situation. There is still much research to be done in this field. We need experimental answers to such questions as whether there are different kinds or aspects of this aptitude for learning motivation; do different types of motivation such as excellence in various branches of knowledge for various skills and for the social skills of honesty, sympathy, empathy and emotional control and maturity require variations in the aptitude? Or is there one overriding motivation for competence in whatever one strives for as Robert W. White has suggested? Do the various physiological variables under control of the autonomic nervous system differ in their ability to reveal the aptitude? When the aptitude for learning motivation has been as intensively studied as has that of intelligence, I suspect it will be
8 revealed to be as important as IQ to measure and cultivate. Even though one usually thinks that an aptitude is primarily determined by genetics, clearly environmental influences of education, training, and cultural milieu are necessary for its full development. The unanswered question whether the deficient autonomic learning is the cause of the low social motivation or is caused by the low social motivation or possibly both are caused by some third condition remains for future research. Of course the ultimate cause is not known at this early stage of research on autonomic learning. Ordinary IQ tests do not purport to answer that question either, yet no-one doubts the value of IQ nor of the many studies that show how they correlate with school performance. Only if research continues can these ultimate causes be discovered. Another frequent criticism is the low correlation between autonomic variables. As is well known subtests should correlate low with each other but high with the criterion. We must think of the various autonomic variables as subtests. why they often correlate low with each other is probably due to the considerable differentiation within both the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. These unanswered questions notwithstanding, human motivational and emotional learning aptitude would appear to be a distinct aptitude. Moreover, this series of studies has shown it may be an aptitude as important to the furtherance of general social tranquility as to the successful social adjustment of the individual. I believe that great effort should be made to study this aptitude, to understand it, and eventually - if we are to be so fortunate - to learn to enhance its development in every possible way.
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Ax, A.F. and Bamford, J.L. (1968) Validation of a psychophysiological test of aptitude for learning social motives. Psychophysiology, 5: 316-332. Ax, A.F., Bamford, J.L., Beckett, P.G.S., Fretz, N.F., & Gottlieb, J.S. (1970) Autonomic conditioning in chronic schizophrenia. J. Abnormal Psychol., 76: 140-154. Ax, A.F., Lloyd, R., Gorham, J.C., Lootens, A.M. and Robinson, R. (1978) Autonomic learning: a measure of motivation. Motivation and Emotion, 2: 213-242. Barnes, J. and Ax, A.F. (1978) Exammation of a Physiological Measure of Achievement Motivation, unpublished manuscript, Nova University, Fort Lauderdale. Bennett, L. (1983) A Psychophysiological Study of Heart Rate Control in Psychopathic Juvenile Delinquents, doctoral dissertation, Nova University. Cadoret, T.J. (1978) Psychopathy in adopted-away offspring of biological parents with antisocial behavior. Arch. Gen. Ps_vchiatry, 35: 176-184. Christiansen, K.O. (1977) A preliminary study of criminality among twins. In S.A. Mednick and K.O. Christiansen (Eds.), Blosoclal Basis of Criminal Behavior Gardner. New York, pp. 88-108. Cornette, R.A. (1977) The Aptitude for Social Learning as shown by Therapy Versus Non-therapy Subjects, Doctoral dissertation, University of Detroit. Crowe, R. (1975) An adoptive study of psychopathy: preliminary results from arrest records and psychiatric hospital records. In R. Fieve, D. Rosenthal and H. Brill (Eds.), Genetic Research in Ps_vchiatry. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, pp. 326-341. Eysenck, H.J. and Levy, A. (1972) Conditioning, introversionextroversion and the strength of the nervous system. In V.D. Nebyhtzen and J.A. Gray (Eds.), Biological Eases of Individual Behavior, Academic, New York, pp. 206-220. Gellhorn, E. (1957) Autonomic Imbalance and the Hypothalamus. University of Minnesota Press. Minneapolis. Gorham, J.C., Novelly, R.A., Ax, A.F. and Frohman, C.E. (1978) Classically conditioned autonomic discrimination and tryptophan uptake in chronic schizophrenia. Psychophyslologv, 15: 158-164. Hare. R.D. and Quinn. M.J. (1971) Psychopathy and autonomic conditioning. J. Abnormal PsychoI., 77: 223-235. Hein, P.L., Cohen, S.F. and Shmavonian, B.M. (1966) Perceptual mode and cardiac conditioning. Psychophystologv, 3: 101-107. Hoskins. R.G. (1946) The Biology of Schizophrenia, W.W. Norton, New York. Isaacson, R.L. (1974) The Limblc Svstem. Plenum, New York. Kirzner, G. (1974) Migraine: A study of psychophysiological and personality correlates, doctoral dissertation, University of Detroit. Lange, J. (1929) Verbrechen afs Schiskal, George Thieme Leipzig, Unwin Brothers, London. Lynn, R. (1963) Russian theory and research on schizophrenia. Psychol. Bull., 60: 486-498. Mednick, S.A. and Finello. K.M. (1983) Biological factors and crime: implications for forensic psychiatry. Int. J. Law, Psychiatry, 6: l-15.
9 Mednick, S.A. and Hutchings, B. (1978) Genetic and psychophysiological factors in asocial behavior. Am. Acad. Child Psychiatry, 17: 209-223. Pavlov, I.P. (1927) Conditioned Reflexes, Oxford University Press, London, (transl. C.V. Anrep). Peters, H.N. and Murphree, O.D. (1954) The conditioned reflex activity in the chronic schizophrenic. J. Clin. PsychoI., 10: 126-130. Shaw, R. (1974) Validation of a Psychophysiological Test of Motivation for Psychotherapy, doctoral dissertation, University of Detroit.
Venables, P.H. (1960) The effect of auditory and visual stimulation on skin potential response of schizophrenia. Brain, 83: 71-92. Wells, D.T. (1973) Large magnitude voluntary heart rate changes. Psychophysiology, 10: 260-269. White, R.W. (1959) Motivation reconsidered: the concept of competence. Psychol. Rev., 66: 291-333. Williamson, D.A. and Blanchard, E.B. (1979) Heart rate and blood pressure biofeedback. I. A review of the recent experimental literature. Biofeedback, Self-Regul., 4: l-34.
