Pavlovian conditioning of sexual arousal: Parametric and background manipulations.

Recent studies have shown that a Pavlovian conditioned stimulus (CS) for unconsummated sexual arousal can increase the rate of copulation in the rat. The present report includes 5 experiments examining the effects of parametric manipulations on the conditioned arousal response in 216 male and more than 136 ovariectomized female Long-Evans hooded rats. Results show that 6–9 trials are necessary for reliable conditioning, but extinction is somewhat slower than acquisition. The function for the CS/unconditioned stimulus (UCS) interval is quadratic, with a minimum of several minutes required for effective conditioning. In the 1st 3 experiments, it appeared that background cues were conditioned as well as the designated CSs, and this was tested explicitly in the last 2 studies. In one, the effect of background cues was shown by training and testing in different situations; in the 2nd, background cues were shown to be subject to latent inhibition. Results demonstrate the influence of Pavlovian learning in sexual behavior and help to provide the basis for an animal model of the acquisition of deviant sexual arousal in humans. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)