The effect of evaluation on co-occurrence memory judgement.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Memory Research

Background:

• Attitudes towards objects can influence cognitive processes.
• Evaluative conditioning (EC) research often relies on memory judgments to assess associations.
• Illusory correlation describes the tendency to perceive relationships between co-occurring stimuli.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how pre-existing attitudes affect memory judgments of co-occurrence.
• To determine if attitudes create illusory correlations between individuals and associated stimuli.
• To examine the validity of co-occurrence memory judgments in evaluative conditioning research.

Main Methods:

• Inducing positive or negative attitudes towards novel male stimuli.
• Pairing these stimuli with an equal number of positive and negative animal stimuli.
• Administering memory tests to assess reported co-occurrences of same-valence and opposite-valence pairs.

Main Results:

• Participants reported more co-occurrences for same-valence (positive-positive, negative-negative) pairs than opposite-valence pairs.
• This valence-compatibility effect persisted even when attitudes were induced after pairing or when participants knew the true co-occurrence rates.
• Illusory correlation was observed even for stimuli that did not actually co-occur.

Conclusions:

• Attitudes can lead to illusory correlations, influencing memory judgments of co-occurrence.
• This effect occurs even when the co-occurring stimuli are not traits or behaviors.
• The findings question the reliability of co-occurrence memory judgments in evaluative conditioning research.