The use of sexually arousing slides as unconditioned stimuli for the GSR in a discrimination paradigm

Traditional studies of classical conditioning have relied heavily on the use of noxious stimuli. This study employed pin-up slides as non-noxious UCSs in a discrimination paradigm. Significant differential reactivity to critical and noncritical stimuli was found for both CSs and UCSs. Differential novelty and meaningfulness as well as failure to find differences during the UCS interval on test trials raised the question of whether the obtained differences in reactivity were due to orienting or “conditioned” responses.