Cortical inhibition, drive level, and conditioning.

The performance of 40 neurotic female patients on finger withdrawal and GSR conditioning to shock was correlated with several personality and objective measures of drive level and cortical inhibition. All correlations between conditioning indices for the 2 responses were positive and significant (p < .05) for this group. The correlations of the drive measures with both conditioned responses were all consistent with Spence's (1958) drive theory although only 3 of these correlations were significant. There was no consistent relationship demonstrated between measures of cortical inhibition and conditioning. The implications of these and other results for the hypothesis of a general factor of conditionability were discussed.