Subliminal Evaluative Conditioning Changed Implicit and Explicit Depressive Cognition

Abstract

Abstract:The purpose of our study was to investigate whether subliminal evaluative conditioning could change implicit and explicit depression-related cognition. Subliminal evaluative conditioning was conducted as a form of Primed Lexical Decision Task, in which subliminally presented self-related word was followed supraminally presented positive words. For measuring implicit depression-related cognition, we used Depression Implicit Association Task (Depression IAT), and for explicit depression-related cognition, we used Depression subscale extracting from Depression And Anxiety Cognition Scale (DACS-D). Furthermore, we also investigated whether the changes of implicit and explicit cognition could be last for 24 hours. As a result, we found that evaluative conditioning changed the implicit depression-related cognition. However, this changing in implicit cognition did not last for 24 hours later. In explicit depression-related cognition, evaluative conditioning by PLDT changed not all subscale but negative automatic thought for self. These results suggested that evaluative conditioning made temporally changing to implicit depression-related cognition while sustained changing to explicit depressive thought for self.

All I Need Is Two: The Clinical Potential of Adding Evaluative Pairing Procedures to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Changing Self-, Body- and Food-Related Evaluations

“…Other studies observed similar effect modulations, although less extreme in magnitude [57,58]. These effects suggest that future studies on the clinical potential of pairing procedures, especially when intending to use categorization tasks [65,69,72,85], could benefit from closely examining how an induced processing goal might affect source valence encoding.…”

“…Arguably, the appeal of using pairing procedures in clinically relevant domains originates from their initial conception as "implicit" modes of intervention that do not require any conscious processing of target and source stimuli [49,50]. Consistent with this idea, we identified several examples of pairing procedures, particularly among studies on raising self-esteem, that actively attempted to preclude conscious processing by presenting stimuli briefly [65,67,69] or otherwise subliminally [66].…”

“…However, no study has yet combined pairing procedures with CBT, and there is considerable heterogeneity among findings, both within and across study domains. As some authors suggest, the failures to replicate pairing effects could be due to inadequate choice of stimuli or controls [71,83,100], statistical "ceiling effects" in non-clinical populations [85], or extraneous influences when measuring pairing effects with a significant temporal delay [69]. However, replication failures may also raise more profound concerns about the validity of pairing procedures [72] and ultimately discourage further explorations of their clinical potential.…”

“…With similar intentions, another recent study by Masuyama et al [69] investigated the use of pairing procedures for raising low self-esteem as a means of alleviating depressive cognitions. Using the Dijksterhuis [65] procedure, participants from a non-clinical undergraduate student sample were either assigned to a (subliminal) self with positive words or self with neutral words condition.…”

“…While studies on food and consumption preferences use target stimuli such as pictures of foods or beverages during preference and behavioral measurements [47,87], the specific target stimuli used in studies on self-esteem and body satisfaction, such as pronouns or own body pictures, are not used during measurement. Instead, the studies use more general outcomes, such as depression questionnaires [69] or body image scales [78], to measure pairing effects. Thus, some alleged replication failures of clinically relevant pairing effects could instead indicate the absence of the generalization of pairing effects from specific target stimuli to more general outcome measures [84].…”