title: Additional support for the existence of skin conductance responses at unconditioned stimulus omission.
abstract: The existence of a skin conductance response to an expected but omitted aversive stimulus has recently been challenged. To counter this claim, we provide a review of the literature and a temporal analysis of two independent skin conductance data sets during aversive conditioning and extinction that demonstrates a consistent and reproducible skin conductance response at omission of an anticipated aversive stimulus. The validity of this so-called unconditioned stimulus (US) omission response is relevant for skin conductance modeling in the context of neuroimaging and more generally for conditioning theory.
authors.affiliation: Neuroimaging Research Group, Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germany. spoormaker@mpipsykl.mpg.de
authors.forename: Victor I
authors.initials: VI
authors.lastname: Spoormaker
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Blechert
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Goya-Maldonado
authors.forename: Philipp G
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Sämann
authors.forename: Frank H
authors.initials: FH
authors.lastname: Wilhelm
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Czisch
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans