Preception in the rat: Autonomic response to shock as a function of length of the warning interval.

Abstract

The autonomic response (galvanic skin response) to a noxious stimulus (shock) is reduced when the stimulus is preceded by a warning signal. The greatest reduction, 53%, was obtaqined with a warning interval of 1 second. Warning also reduces variance of the response over trials, a decrease of over 90% for the optimum 1-second interval.