ABSTRACT

Carmona found that the electroencephalogram or normal cats and curarized rats could be changed by instrumental learning. Artificial respiration produced an increase in heart rate, and the curare a second increase. Lewis paralyzed 16 human subjects—some by curare and some by suc-cinylcholine—so completely that they had to be maintained on artificial respiration. Some of the strongest evidence for human visceral learning has been available some time but has been overlooked because of disciplinary compartmentalization. Furthermore, other, less heroic human experiments are continuing to provide evidence for human visceral learning that is becoming cumulatively more impressive. Many other aspects of the problem of maximizing visceral learning deserve intensive investigation. Extensive work in Eastern European countries has shown that animals and people can be trained to discriminate a considerable variety of visceral stimuli that once were considered to be entirely unconscious. Interestingly enough, this increase in voluntary control was accompanied by therapeutically significant decreases in overall blood pressure.