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Dissociative storage systems in human evaluative conditioning

E P Fulcher1, R P Cocks

  • 1Department of Psychology, Worcester College of Higher Education, Henwick Grove, U.K.

Behaviour Research and Therapy
|January 1, 1997
PubMed
Summary

Human evaluative conditioning can occur without conscious awareness of stimulus pairings. Long-term preference changes persist even when memory for the conditioning event is lost.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Learning and Memory

Background:

  • Human evaluative conditioning (EC) is known to occur without conscious awareness of conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus (CS-UCS) contingency.
  • Previous findings supporting this dissociation have faced methodological challenges and disputes.
  • Understanding the conditions under which awareness influences EC is crucial for models of human classical conditioning.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To replicate EC with procedural modifications, including mental imagery, to further investigate the role of contingency awareness.
  • To assess long-term retention of contingency memory and its relationship with preference ratings.
  • To provide evidence for or against dissociative storage models in human classical conditioning.

Main Methods:

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  • Replication of evaluative conditioning procedures using mental imagery to associate unconditioned stimuli (UCS) with conditioned stimuli (CS) pictures.
  • Inclusion of assessments for contingency awareness, long-term preference ratings, and memory recall for associated images.
  • Testing participants' ability to recall image-CS pairings after a significant delay (2 months).

Main Results:

  • Acquisition of evaluative responses was significantly dependent on contingency awareness, particularly for unpleasant UCS pairings.
  • Despite a lack of conscious recall for the associated images in over 90% of cases, preference ratings for CSs remained biased after 2 months.
  • Long-term preference shifts occurred independently of conscious memory for the specific conditioning contingencies.

Conclusions:

  • The findings demonstrate that evaluative responses can be learned and maintained independently of conscious awareness of the underlying contingencies.
  • This supports models proposing dissociative storage structures in human classical conditioning, where implicit and explicit memory systems operate separately.
  • The study provides robust evidence for unconscious influences on attitude formation and maintenance in evaluative conditioning.