Covariation of alternative measures of responding in rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) eyeblink conditioning during acquisition training and tone generalization

The likelihood, size, and speed of eyelid movements are thought to covary during the acquisition and expression of conditioning in rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and are generally accepted as interchangeable measures of the associative strength activated by the conditioned stimulus (CS). To test this assumption, the authors examined the patterns of covariation in these eyelid movement measures in acquisition and stimulus generalization in the upper eyelid and nictitating membrane. Rather than the expected covariation among these measures, eyelid movement magnitudes during the CS were distributed in approximately a bimodal manner. That is, eyelid activity consisted largely of a mixture of very small (< 0.125 mm) baseline measurements and larger (> 1 mm) movements. The results are discussed with respect to their implications for real-time models of eyelid conditioning.