Effects of Contextual Activity in Conditioning of Voluntary Response

Conditioning of a voluntary response was studied by arranging a tone and a light respectively as CS and UCS with an interstimulus interval of 200 msec. Ss in control groups were instructed to complete a certain kind of key-pressing response to the UCS. Ss in experimental groups were to press or to let go the key in response to the CS with prescribed amounts of force or work and then complete the response to the UCS as did Ss in the control groups. Two test trials were run for all groups except group 2. It was found that more and larger CRs were obtained in the experimental groups on both of the test trials. However, the results obtained on the second test trials were more or less smaller than those obtained on the first one.