"Conditional stimulus informativeness governs conditioned stimulus—Unconditioned stimulus associability": Correction to Ward et al. (2012).

2012 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 254-254
Author(s):  
Ryan D. Ward ◽  
C. R. Gallistel ◽  
Greg Jensen ◽  
Vanessa L. Richards ◽  
Stephen Fairhurst ◽  
...  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Heycke ◽  
Christoph Stahl

Evaluative Conditioning (EC) changes the preference towards a formerly neutral stimulus (Conditioned Stimulus; CS), by pairing it with a valent stimulus (Unconditioned Stimulus; US), in the direction of the valence of the US. When the CS is presented subliminally (i.e., too briefly to be consciously perceived), contingency awareness between CS and US can be ruled out. Hence, EC effects with subliminal CSs would support theories claiming that contingency awareness is not necessary for EC effects to occur. Recent studies reported the absence of EC with briefly presented CSs when both CS and US were presented in the visual modality, even though the CSs were identified at above-chance levels. Challenging this finding, Heycke and colleagues (2017) found some evidence for an EC effect with briefly presented visual stimuli in a cross-modal paradigm with auditory USs, but that study did not assess CS visibility. The present study attempted to replicate this EC effect with different stimuli and a CS visibility check. Overall EC for briefly presented stimuli was absent, and results from the visibility check show that an EC effect with briefly presented CSs was only found, when the CSs were identified at above-chance levels.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 287-323
Author(s):  
Bertram Gawronski ◽  
Skylar M. Brannon ◽  
Katarina Blask ◽  
Eva Walther

Research on contextualized attitude change suggests that, even when coun-terattitudinal information effectively influences evaluations in the context in which this information was learned, previously formed attitudes sometimes continue to determine evaluations in any other context (contextual renewal). Expanding on evidence for contextual renewal in attitude change based on verbal information, five experiments tested the emergence of contextual renewal in evaluative conditioning, involving pairings of a conditioned stimulus with a valenced unconditioned stimulus. Counter to the notion of contextual renewal, counterconditioning changed initially conditioned attitudes to the same extent irrespective of the context. Verbal information presented with the same procedural parameters produced contextual renewal effects only when evaluations were not measured between the formation of initial attitudes and the learning of counterattitudinal information. The results suggest two previously unidentified boundary conditions of contextualized attitude change that need to be reconciled with extant theories of evaluative learning.


2000 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jae Young Kwon ◽  
Andreas Bacher ◽  
Donald J. Deyo ◽  
John F. Disterhoft ◽  
Tatsuo Uchida ◽  
...  

Background The acquisition of a conditioned eyeblink response has been used extensively to study the neurologic substrates of learning and memory. We examined the effects of the anesthetics isoflurane and pentobarbital, or hypothermia (30 degrees C), on the ability of rabbits to acquire an eyeblink conditioned response after 6.5 min of cerebral ischemia. Methods New Zealand white rabbits (n = 48) were randomly assigned to sham, normothermic, hypothermic, isoflurane, or pentobarbital groups. In the normothermic, hypothermic, isoflurane, and pentobarbital groups, 6.5 min of global cerebral ischemia was produced. In animals randomized to the isoflurane and pentobarbital groups, a pattern of burst suppression was achieved on the electroencephalogram before the start of the ischemic episode. Animals in the hypothermia group were cooled to 30 degrees C before ischemia. Seven days after ischemia, eyeblink training was started using an audible tone presented for 100 ms as the conditioned stimulus. The unconditioned stimulus was an air puff directed at the cornea. The delay between the end of conditioned stimulus and the start of the unconditioned stimulus (the trace interval) was 300 ms in duration. A conditioned response was defined as an eyeblink that was initiated during the trace interval. Eighty trials per day and 15 days of training were delivered. Results Neurologic deficits were greatest in the normothermia group, and these animals also had fewer conditioned responses than those in the sham, hypothermia, or pentobarbital groups. Animals in the isoflurane group had an intermediate number of conditioned responses that was not significantly different from the normothermia group. Conclusions This study demonstrates that a brief episode of cerebral ischemia results in the impairment of associative learning. Hypothermia and burst-suppressive doses of pentobarbital were able to improve neurobehavioral outcome as measured by ability to acquire a trace conditioned response.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 204380871988830
Author(s):  
Klint Fung ◽  
Lynn E. Alden

Previous studies have shown that social anxiety was associated with enhanced acquisition of anxiety as measured by subjective ratings in conditioning tasks using faces as the conditioned stimulus and negative evaluation as the unconditioned stimulus. However, a recent study failed to replicate the effect. The current study re-examined the enhanced acquisition effect with a larger sample, explored whether differences in expectancy of negative evaluation was a potential mechanism, and compared the contribution of social anxiety to that of depression on enhanced acquisition. Two hundred and sixty-three unselected participants took part in a differential conditioning task in which three faces each were paired with hostile, neutral, and friendly reaction during acquisition, and all three were paired with neutral reaction during extinction. Results replicated earlier findings that participant social anxiety was associated with enhanced acquisition of anxiety. Socially anxious participants did not show higher expectancy of hostile reaction during acquisition, which suggested the need to consider alternative mechanisms underlying enhanced acquisition. Depression was also associated with enhanced acquisition; however, that association was accounted for by social anxiety. The effect of social anxiety was significant over and above depression, which supported its diagnostic validity.


Perception ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 663-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Davies ◽  
Geoffrey L Davies ◽  
Spencer Bennett

Repeated pairing of an auditory conditioned stimulus with a weak visual unconditioned stimulus produced extended image sequences and visual responses conditioned to the tone alone. The experiment is set into the context of Pavlov's view of Helmholtz's “unconscious inference” thus providing experimental evidence linking the higher mental process of perception with classical conditioning.


2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoqing Hu ◽  
Bertram Gawronski ◽  
Robert Balas

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is defined as the change in the evaluation of a conditioned stimulus (CS) due to its pairing with a valenced unconditioned stimulus (US). According to propositional accounts, EC effects should be qualified by the relation between the CS and the US. Dual-process accounts suggest that relational information should qualify EC effects on explicit evaluations, whereas implicit evaluations should reflect the frequency of CS–US co-occurrences. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that, when relational information was provided before the encoding of CS–US pairings, it moderated EC effects on explicit, but not implicit, evaluations. In Experiment 3, relational information moderated EC effects on both explicit and implicit evaluations when it was provided simultaneously with CS–US pairings. Frequency of CS–US pairings had no effect on implicit evaluations. Although the results can be reconciled with both propositional and dual-process accounts, they are more parsimoniously explained by propositional accounts.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document