No abstract

This study is based on the idea that emotion-related processing happens on various different levels. Common methods that are used to measure different aspects of emotion-related processing exhibit specific sensitivities to one or the other of these separate processing levels. Here, the hypothesis was tested that explicit and implicit measures of emotion-related processing are differently influenced by self-referenced versus unreferenced emotion. The explicit measure was self reported valence and the implicit measure was startle reflex modulation. In one session, emotional scenes were paired with short sentences inducing self-reference (e.g. "this dog will attack you" written underneath the image of an aggressive dog), while in another session, emotional scenes were presented without any reference. During both sessions explicit as well as implicit responses were collected. Self-referenced unpleasant images were rated more negative and self-referenced pleasant images were rated more positive than images with no reference. In contrast, the implicit measure indicated greater startle responses related to self-reference regardless of emotion category. Under the common assumption that greater startle responses reflect increased affective negativity, this means that self-referenced pleasant images elicited more negative implicit affect than unreferenced pleasant images. However, in both cases (self-referenced and unreferenced) startle responses demonstrated valence depended modulation as expected. Thus, in our study startle responses demonstrated sensitivity to affective valence as well as self-reference. It is concluded that self-reference is linked to increased motivation, which in turn has been reported to be detectable via startle reflex modulation (SRM) as well.

Evaluative conditioning (EC) effects on established liked and disliked brands were measured via self report, startle reflex modulation (SRM), heart rate (HR), skin conductance (SC), and the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Baseline measures were compared with measures taken after 1, 6, and 16 conditioning procedures. The aim was to determine how the different measures are differently sensitive to EC effects. Although self-report indicated conditioning effects already after 1 conditioning procedure and in both directions, the authors believe this to be an artifact due to a regression to the mean effect and thus reject this finding. Similarly, HR and SC did not show any sensitivity to conditioning effects. However, SRM and the IAT revealed significant conditioning effects, but more than 1 conditioning procedure were needed to cause changes. Most importantly, SRM, the only implicit measure of raw affective processing (subcortical), did show a significant EC effect after six conditioning procedures, but only in case of disliked brands turning into more liked brands. Because implicit measures are assumed to be more sensitive to deep subcortical affective processing it is concluded that this level of affective processing is more easily influenced by evaluative conditioning than higher order (cortical) processing levels. The findings are discussed in terms of different aspects of brand attitude (affective and cognitive) that seem to be differently affected by EC. Implications for marketers and advertisers are suggested.

No abstract

In the present study, using both implicit and explicit measures, we addressed the issue of whether strongly developed relationships towards brands could be modified through the use of evaluative conditioning. Using an online survey, individual participant brand lists were created, and formed the basis of this experiment. Participants were then exposed to conditioning during a longitudinal study. Throughout the experiment, a combination of explicit and implicit measures was used to assess changes in attitude. Specifically, participants were asked to rate the brand names on a Likert-type scale. Simultaneously, changes in the brains electrical activity in response to the brands were recorded via electroencephalography (EEG). Upon completion of this task, participants underwent two Implicit Association Tests (IAT; one for liked brands and one for disliked brands). There were two main findings of this study. Firstly, no significant changes in attitude were observed via the use of explicit measures, and those that were found relating to the IAT were regarded as questionable. Secondly, EEG presented consistent results which showed that conditioning elicited changes in cortical activity towards both liked and disliked brands, which suggest it may be a useful tool in measuring the impact of evaluative conditioning that is not reflected in verbal responses.