Marianne Hammerl

When all is revealed: a dissociation between evaluative learning and contingency awareness.

Three experiments are reported that address the issue of awareness in evaluative learning in two different sensory modalities: visual and haptic. Attempts were made to manipulate the degree of awareness through a reduction technique (by use of a distractor task in Experiments 1 and 2 and by subliminally presenting affective stimuli in Experiment 3) and an induction technique (by unveiling the evaluative learning effect and requiring participants to try to discount the influence of the affective stimuli). The results indicate overall that evaluative learning was successful in the awareness-reduction groups but not in the awareness-induction groups. Moreover, an effect in the opposite direction to that normally observed in evaluative learning emerged in participants aware of the stimulus contingencies. In addition, individual differences in psychological reactance were found to be implicated in the strength and direction of the effect. It is argued that these results pose serious problems for the contention that awareness is necessary for evaluative learning.

Human Evaluative Conditioning: Order of Stimulus Presentation

In an experiment designed to demonstrate evaluative conditioning, subjects were shown 48 pictures of sculptures that they rated on a scale with 21 categories (−10 to +10). Then, the two most liked pictures (L) were paired with pictures from the categories −1, 0, or +1 (N). In contrast to prior experiments, subjects were given either forward conditioning (N-L) or backward conditioning (L-N) trials but not both. Four other neutral stimuli were paired with each other (N-N) and acted as control stimulus pairs. After conditioning, the stimuli were rated a second time. There was a statistically significant difference in evaluative ratings showing a change of the evaluative tone of the previously neutral stimuli in a positive direction only after forward conditioning. This finding is inconsistent with results of prior experiments and challenges the assumption of Martin and Levey (1987) that evaluative conditioning is different from human classical conditioning.

Reactance in affective-evaluative learning: Outside of conscious control?

Recent studies have shown that the basic evaluative conditioning (EC) effect (originally neutral stimuli acquiring an affective value congruent with the valence of the affective stimulus they were paired with) seems to be limited to participants who are unaware of the stimulus pairings. If participants are aware of the pairings, reactance effects occur (i.e., changes in the opposite direction of the valence of the affective stimulus). To examine whether these reactance effects are due to processes of conscious countercontrol or whether the ratings reflect intrinsic feelings towards the stimuli, a new procedure was developed that included a bogus‐pipeline condition. In this procedure, which was adapted from attitude research, participants were connected to bogus lie detector equipment leading them to believe that their “true” affective‐evaluative responses were being observed. In Experiment 1, reactance effects occurred also in this procedure, suggesting that the effect is spontaneous and not due to processes of conscious countercontrol. In Experiment 2, these effects were replicated using a between‐subjects design in addition to the standard within‐subjects control condition.

When All Is Considered: Evaluative Learning Does Not Require Contingency Awareness

Abstract We argue that the effects of evaluative learning may occur (a) without conscious perception of the affective stimuli, (b) without awareness of the stimulus contingencies, and (c) without any awareness that learning has occurred at all. Whether the three experiments reported in our target article provide conclusive evidence for either or any of these assertions is discussed in the commentaries of De Houwer and Field. We respond with the argument that when considered alongside other studies carried out over the past few decades, our experiments provide compelling evidence for a theory that posits a dissociation between evaluative learning and contingency awareness.

Effects of gum chewing on memory and attention: reply to Scholey (2004).

Recent studies have reported varying results regarding cognitive performance while chewing gum. The differences between the results of these studies may be explained by methodological and statistical factors. Future studies are needed to assess various aspects of cognitive functioning using extensive standardised neuropsychological test batteries, adequate experimental designs and appropriate statistical methods.

Experimentelle Realitätsnähe in der sozialpsychologischen Forschung

Zusammenfassung: Sozialpsychologische Experimente stehen haufig in der Kritik, sie seien artifiziell und spiegeln nicht das «wirkliche Leben» wider. In diesem Zusammenhang weisen Aronson und Carlsmith (1968) darauf hin, dass es gar nicht die Aufgabe eines Experiments ist, die Lebenswelt zu simulieren, sondern ein Hochstmas an experimenteller Realitatsnahe aufzuweisen (d. h. eine grostmogliche Wirkung auf die Versuchspersonen zu erzielen). Die experimentelle Realitatsnahe eines Laborexperiments wird wiederum bestimmt durch die Art der gewahlten Operationalisierung der unabhangigen und abhangigen Variablen. Daher wurde in der vorliegenden Arbeit anhand von 6 kompletten Jahrgangen (1994-1999) der Zeitschrift fur Sozialpsychologie uberpruft, auf welche Weise diese Variablen in den jeweiligen experimentellen Arbeiten operationalisiert wurden. Es zeigte sich eine stark ausgepragte Praferenz fur hypothetische Szenarien zur Manipulation der unabhangigen Variablen und fur Selbstberichtsverfahren zur Messung der ab...

Transfer effects as a function of sequential and quantitative schedule constraints

Schwartz (1982, 1988) found that a pretraining of contingent reinforcement interferes with subsequent rule discovery. The present study investigated the effects of schedule imposed sequential and quantitative constraints (Timberlake & Allison, 1974) on task performance in a subsequent test phase. Sixty-four Ss, students of the University of Duesseldorf, were assigned at random to one of four experimental conditions, differing according to the presence vs. absence of sequential and quantitative constraints, respectively. Discrimination-learning performance and variability during test phase were significantly better for Ss experiencing sequential constraint during treatment. In contrast, the introduction of a quantitative restriction during treatment had no statistically significant effects on test phase performance.