title: Conditioned diastolic blood pressure: the effects of magnitude of acquired response and feedback schedules on resistance to extinction.
abstract: The purpose of this experiment was to examine the effects of: (a) training to two different response magnitude criteria, and (b) three different feedback schedules on the acquisition and subsequent extinction of diastolic blood pressure changes. Subjects were 20 male and female normotensive volunteer college students, ages 18-36 years. A 3 x 2 design was used in which 3 schedules of reinforcement (0, 50 and 100%) were factorially compared with two response magnitude training criteria (10% and 20% of resting basal diastolic blood pressure). The results indicated that while the partial reinforcement effect appears to hold for the acquisition of bidirectional diastolic blood pressure changes, different response magnitude training criteria seemed to have a greater influence in producing significant differences in acquisition rate during the training of diastolic blood pressure decreases. Resistance to extinction was notably weak across all conditions, with most subjects failing to exhibit previously acquired bidirectional diastolic blood pressure performance after the end of the first extinction session.
authors.affiliation: University of New Orleans, LA 70119.
authors.forename: E H
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Gamble
authors.forename: S T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Elder
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001794:Blood Pressure; D002320:Cardiovascular Physiological Phenomena; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male