Affective learning: awareness and aversion
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 3, 2026

Investigating the Neural Mechanisms of Aware and Unaware Fear Memory with fMRI
Published on: October 6, 2011
1Department of Clinical and Physiological Psychology, University of Giessen, Germany.
Abstract:
In two studies, we investigated the influence of aversive and nonaversive reinforcers on startle reactivity, visceral responses, and self-report during Pavlovian conditioning. Furthermore, we assessed how awareness of the stimulus contingencies affect conditioned discrimination in the different response systems. Conditioned potentiation of the startle response was only observed in the context of aversive learning. Moreover, blink potentiation occurred without awareness of the relationship between the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus. In contrast, skin conductance conditioning was independent of the aversiveness of the reinforcer and was only obtained for those individuals who could correctly verbalize the stimulus contingency in a postconditioning recognition test. Cardiac responses varied with the task demands of the situation and covaried with individual response stereotypes.
Related Concept Videos
Avoidance Learning and Learned Helplessness
Avoidance learning occurs when an organism learns that a specific behavior can prevent an unpleasant outcome. For example, a student who receives a bad grade may start studying harder to avoid future poor grades. This behavior persists even when the negative outcome is no longer present. Avoidance learning is powerful because it maintains behavior in the absence of the...
Associative Learning
Classical conditioning, also known...
The Influence of Affect on Cognition
Role of Affect in Interpersonal Attraction
Higher Mental Functions of Brain: Learning and Memory
The Influence of Cognition on Affect
