Fig 1.
Stimulation protocols and eyeblink responses.
(A) Onset, offset, and duration of the CS and US. The offsets of the CS and US co-terminate 500 ms after CS onset in paired trials. (B) The distribution of the US alone, CS alone, and paired (CS + US) trials in three different protocols (Child 1 from “School A”, Child 2 from “School B”). (C) Examples of CRs and URs, in paired trials.
Fig 2.
Learning curves of CR percentages over block.
The three different session length protocol groups and examples of “Good learners”, “Poor learners” and “Abnormal learning curves” during the first five blocks, with averages in bold.
Table 1.
Average CR percentages (SD) in paired trials and CS alone trials.
Fig 3.
CR percentages in blocks 1–5 (mean ± SEM).
The results differ between groups based on age and sex. The adults produced more CRs than the children and the females produced more CRs than the males. (A) Adults (n 26) and children (n 42). (B) Girls (n 22) and boys (n 20). (C) Women (n 18) and men (n 8).
Fig 4.
Age and sex influences rate of CRs.
(A) Scatterplot illustrating average CR percentage in blocks 2–5 as a function of age of the children. (B) Boxplots showing the distribution of average CR percentage performed by the children (n 42) and adults (n 26) and (C and D) divided into groups of females and males.
Fig 5.
CR percentages in blocks 2–5 (mean ± SEM) in blocks 2–5 in younger girls (n 9) and boys (n 11) younger than 9 years old; older girls (n 13) and boys (n 9) 9 years old or older; women (n 18) and men (n 8).
The females in each age group reached a higher average CR percentage than the males. The older children’s level of performance is near the adults’.
Table 2.
Coefficients in standard linear regression models with centralized age in months and sex as predictors of the children’s (n = 42) CR percentages.
Table 3.
Average CR onset latency mean (SD) and CR onset variability/mean SD (SD) in ms after CS onset in paired trials with CS-US ISI of 485 ms.
Table 4.
Average CR onset and peak latency mean and variability/mean SD (SD) in ms after CS onset in paired and CS alone trials.
Fig 6.
The older the children, the larger the delay and the smaller the variability of their CR onsets.
(A) Scatterplot illustrating the mean onset latency in blocks 2–5 as a function of age. (B) Scatterplot illustrating the mean SD of the onset latency in blocks 2–5 as a function of age.
Table 5.
Average UR onset latency mean (SD) and UR peak latency mean (SD) in ms after CS onset in paired trials with CS-US ISI of 485 ms.