Feedback-influenced heart rate discrimination

Used a discrimination paradigm to evaluate detection of heart-rate levels. 7 nonpsychotic psychiatric patients and 3 hospital employees were instructed to press a button when they detected a change in heart rate level during a no-feedback, feedback, and 2nd no-feedback phase. Feedback was presented as points on a counter. Operant responding in the presence of both increased and decreased heart rate levels was monitored for each S. Results indicate that Ss did not reliably respond in the presence of the heart-rate levels prior to stimulus control feedback training. Accuracy of responding improved during feedback but decreased slightly at postfeedback. No differences were observed between operant responding to heart-rate increases or decreases. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).