Evaluative Conditioning as Memory-Based Judgment

Stahl, Christopher C.; Aust, Frederik

doi:10.5964/spb.v13i3.28589

Cited by 31 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 85 publications

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“…As a matter of fact, the combined use of an experimental manipulation and memory measure has been specifically recommended for a validation of these measures as indicators of encoding effects (see Sweldens, Corneille & Yzerbyt, 2014). More generally, however, the present findings are fully consistent with a retrieval-based approach to evaluations, which states memory contents retrieved at the evaluation stage, which vary as a function of what information is encoded, underlie evaluations (Gast, 2018;Stahl & Aust, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Cognitive Load Impairs Evaluative Conditioning, Even When Individual CS and US Stimuli are Successfully Encoded

Mierop¹,

Maurage²,

Corneille

2020

rips

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Cognitive load has been shown to reduce both Evaluative Conditioning (EC) effects and CS-US pairing memory. This suggests the successful encoding of CS-US pairings is required for eliciting EC effects. However, an alternative account may be that cognitive load impairs the encoding of individual CS or US stimuli in the first place. We examined this possibility by manipulating the presence or absence of an auditory two-back task at learning, and by measuring the memory for both individual CS and US stimuli and for their pairings. Cognitive load reduced memory for CSs, USs, and CS-US pairings. Of importance, however, it disrupted EC even when the encoding of individual CSs and USs composing a pair was preserved. A mediation analysis also supported the assumption cognitive load reduces EC effects because it hampers the encoding of CS-US relations. This confirms the encoding of CS-US relation is a critical, yet non-efficient, contributor to EC.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Cognitive Load Impairs Evaluative Conditioning, Even When Individual CS and US Stimuli are Successfully Encoded

Mierop¹,

Maurage²,

Corneille

2020

rips

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show abstract

“…A fourth, more recent group of theories argues that Evaluative Conditioning is based on explicit or episodic memory for stimulus pairings (Aust, Haaf, & Stahl, 2019; Gast, 2018; Stahl & Aust, 2018). Although these models have not explicitly predicted the present differentiation effects in the past, they are in line with the findings from Experiments 5–7, which showed that part of the differentiation effect was explained by differential memory for the pairing contingencies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes from mere co-occurrences are guided by differentiation.

Alves¹,

Högden²,

Gast³

et al. 2020

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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People often form attitudes about objects, individuals, or groups by examining and comparing their attributes. Such attribute-based attitude formation is guided by a differentiation principle: Whether people come to like or dislike an attitude object depends on the object's attributes that differentiate it from other objects. Attributes that are redundant with previously-encountered attitude objects are typically "cancelled" out. We tested whether the same differentiation principle applies to co-occurrence-based attitude formation, also known as Evaluative Conditioning. This form of attitude formation describes the phenomenon that attitudes are influenced by positive or negative stimuli that have co-occurred with the attitude object, but which are not inherent attributes of the attitude object itself. Across seven experiments (N = 1611), we consistently found that co-occurrence-based attitude formation is guided by the same differentiation principle as attribute-based attitude formation. Specifically, participants' attitudes towards unknown brands were most strongly influenced by positive or negative stimuli that distinctly co-occurred with a specific brand, and that differentiated that brand from previously-encountered ones. Stimuli that redundantly co-occurred with multiple brands had weaker influences on brand attitudes. The results further suggest that differentiation operates at the learning stage during which distinct stimulus co-occurrences enjoy a processing advantage. We discuss the present findings' theoretical and practical implications for attitude formation and identify differentiation as a possible cause of biased attitudes.

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“…Given that online measures did not interfere with learning, one may prefer such measures because they tap more directly what is experienced during learning. On the other hand, it has been argued that EC is determined by memory retrieval (Gast, 2018; Stahl & Aust, 2018), and that memory for CS-US pairings at retrieval should therefore be a better predictor of EC than awareness at encoding (e.g., Gast, De Houwer, & De Schryver, 2012). We recommend relying on the online perceptual awareness task for studying the role of awareness at encoding.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluative conditioning of pattern-masked nonwords requires perceptual awareness.

Stahl

Bading

2020

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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The evaluative conditioning (EC) phenomenon is central to the study of preference acquisition and attitude formation. Early studies have reported EC in the absence of awareness, but more recent work has questioned this conclusion. In previous work, using briefly presented and pattern-masked conditioned stimuli (CSs), we found that above-chance forced-choice identification of CSs is necessary for EC. Here we extend this work by addressing more directly the inherently subjective issue of consciousness. In 2 studies, we assessed whether above-threshold perceptual awareness of CSs is necessary for EC. Contrasting unconscious learning claims, EC was absent under low and intermediate levels of perceptual awareness. Additional findings suggest that the perceptual awareness task does not interfere with EC, and that it is more sensitive than memory-based awareness proxies. We also found that a confounded variant of the forced-choice identification task can artifactually induce EC; and that an unconfounded version of the task does not induce nor interfere with EC. We discuss limitations of the present studies as well as their relevance for the debate about the automaticity of evaluative learning.

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Evaluative Conditioning as Memory-Based Judgment

Cited by 31 publications

References 85 publications

Cognitive Load Impairs Evaluative Conditioning, Even When Individual CS and US Stimuli are Successfully Encoded

Cognitive Load Impairs Evaluative Conditioning, Even When Individual CS and US Stimuli are Successfully Encoded

Attitudes from mere co-occurrences are guided by differentiation.

Evaluative conditioning of pattern-masked nonwords requires perceptual awareness.

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