Eyelid conditioning and arousal in schizophrenic and normal subjects.

A group of schizophrenic patients were compared with normal Ss on an eyelid-conditioning task. All Ss received SO trials to either a light or a tone CS and the UCS was an air puff to the eye. The principal findings were as follows: (a) the number of conditioned responses was shown to be related to level of skin potential in both normal and schizophrenic Ss, (b) the schizophrenic group gave more conditioned responses than the normal group and this was associated with higher skin potentials in the patient group, (c) the level of skin potential was found to be related to withdrawal and the more withdrawn Ss gave more conditioned responses, (d) a differential effect was found between normal and schizophrenic Ss and the modality of the CS.