Un intento por definir la actividad eléctrica cerebral como una operante

Abstract

In order to be able to define as an operant the brain electrical activity, several experimental operations were performed, consisting in shaping the alpha occipital response, increasing, by contingent stimulation the frequency with which it appeared in a previous period in which the stimulus was not contingent; putting it under stimulus control conditions opposite to those ofits natural emission, that is, a light and not to appear with normally eliciting stimulus, that is, darkness; supres­sing it through contingent stimulation and final/y, by chaining the alpha response to the mu response, elicited in the central area of the brain. Al! these operations gave similar results to the ones previously encountered with the skeletical muscles responses.

Final/y, the efficacy that the contingent stimulus has to increase the response was confirmed by an experiment with subjects conditioned according to a "yoked" procedure, in which one received a stimulus contingent to alpha em­missions and the other did noto Only the one that received the contingent stimulus increased its frequency ofalpha emissions.