Feature-Specific Attention Allocation Modulates the Generalization of Recently Acquired Likes and Dislikes

Abstract

We examined whether the generalization of recently acquired likes and dislikes depends on feature-specific attention allocation. Likes and dislikes were established by means of an evaluative-conditioning procedure in which participants were presented with several exemplars of two subordinate categories (e.g., young men vs. old women). Whereas exemplars of one category were consistently paired with negative stimuli, exemplars of the second category were consistently paired with positive stimuli. In addition, we manipulated feature-specific attention allocation for specific stimulus dimensions (e.g., gender vs. age), either during (Experiments 1 and 2) or before the acquisition phase of the experiment (Experiment 3). Both direct and indirect attitude measures revealed a clear impact of this manipulation on attitude generalization. More specifically, only generalization stimuli that were similar to the CSs in terms of the stimulus dimension that was selectively attended to were evaluated in a manner that was congruent with the acquired liking of those CSs.

The iterative nature of person construal: Evidence from event-related potentials

“…Instead, participants were quicker to respond to positive than negative words in both race conditions, and this effect was consistent over the course of the task (see Supplementary Material). The phenomenon of evaluative priming is sensitive to a number of parameters (Spruyt et al , 2011). Thus, it could be that the SOA used here was too long to produce the behavioral priming phenomenon (see Supplementary Material for more extensive discussion).…”

Feature Specific Attention and Return of Fear after Extinction

“…The same dampening or heightening of return of fear may be achieved by artificially directing participants' attention towards the common or unique features of extinction stimuli, perhaps by giving them descriptive questions about these features during extinction. Spruyt, et al, (2014) used a similar procedure in their investigation of the generalization of attitudes. In that experiment, participants were presented with images of people varying in age and gender (the CSs), some of which were paired with an aversive image (the US).…”

Extinction of likes and dislikes: effects of feature-specific attention allocation

“…For example, Gast and Rothermund (2011) demonstrated that the EC effect is more likely to emerge if participants are encouraged to process evaluative stimulus information during the acquisition phase as compared to when they are encouraged to process non-evaluative stimulus information (see Olson, Kendrick, & Fazio, 2009, for similar findings in the non-evaluative domain). Not only does FSAA impact the emergence of the EC effect, Spruyt et al (2014) showed that FSAA can also impact the generalization of the EC effect. In their studies, EC effects were found to generalize to untrained, novel stimuli that were similar to the CSs in terms of a stimulus dimension that was selectively attended to during or prior to the evaluative conditioning phase.…”

“…Participants in the second group were encouraged to selectively attend to the orientation of CSs (i.e., orientation group). To manipulate FSAA, we used the procedures developed by Spruyt et al (2014). More specifically, we asked participants to categorize the CSs in two arbitrary categories, i.e., "Category A" and "Category B".…”