Evaluative Conditioning with Simultaneous and Sequential Pairings Under Incidental and Intentional Learning Conditions

Putting Operating Principles (What) Before Conditions (How and When) to Improve Theorizing: S - S versus S - R learning in Evaluative Conditioning

“…I believe implicit misattribution is one possible way in which S -R associations could be created, and for it to occur, simultaneous presentations are likely crucial. As corroborating evidence, there are now several studies which have demonstrated with different methodologies the superiority of simultaneous CS -US presentations in generating EC effects in the absence of contingency awareness (Hütter & Sweldens, 2013;Stahl & Heycke, 2016). Yet, I also believe S -R representations can be formed by psychological processes that are very different from implicit misattribution.…”

Propositional Models of Evaluative Conditioning

“…There is no reason why the content of representations (i.e., whether they contain relational information) would determine whether those representations can be retrieved from memory on the basis of similarity with the current environment. 7 In fact, one could easily imagine episodic memory models that are compatible with propositional models of EC (e.g., De Houwer, 1998;Stahl & Heycke, 2016). Episodic models (e.g., Hintzman, 1986;Medin & Schaffer, 1978;Schmidt, De Houwer, & Rothermund, 2016) postulate that each event is encoded in memory as a separate trace and that memory traces are activated on the basis of the similarity between the information stored in those memory traces 6 It would be interesting to compare the automaticity features of the problem solving processes via which propositions about novel stimulus relations are formed and the inferential processes via which those propositions influence evaluative responses and other behavior.…”

How associative is evaluative conditioning? An empirical investigation at the attitude acquisition and attitude change stages

“…First, EC can be obtained in incidental paradigms for which the intentionality of learning is arguably minimal (e.g., Jones et al, 2009). As discussed by Stahl and Heycke (2016), the default attentional resource allocated to the processing of the CS-US pairs in the incidental paradigms might however be sufficient for a propositional encoding of the pairings and could therefore be explained by a single-learning model. Second, the A parameter of the MPT studies was described as reflecting the operation of an associative learning process (Hütter & Sweldens, 2013).…”

“…In an even "stronger" single-learning model, i.e., the memory-based account of EC, Stahl and colleagues (Aust et al, in press;Stahl & Aust, in press;Stahl & Heycke, 2016) argued that the conditioned attitude and the contingency memory are not two distinct mental representations, but rather reflect two different judgments that are produced using a single set of episodic information. Recently, Aust and colleagues (in press) exposed their participants to two learning phases.…”

“…To date however, there is in my opinion no experiment that convincingly predicts and demonstrates that meeting these conditions would secure an associatively driven EC. Actually, even by manipulating directly the latter factors, the obtained results could still be explained more parsimoniously by single-learning models (e.g., Hütter & Sweldens, 2013;Mierop et al, 2018;Stahl & Heycke, 2016). More generally, as operating conditions and principles of associative EC are specified more and more precisely by associative accounts of EC (which allows a proper test of the theories), the scope of the (expected) associatively driven EC becomes consequently reduced.…”