A conditional judgment procedure for probing evaluative conditioning effects in the absence of feelings of remembering.

Abstract

Attitude research has capitalized on evaluative conditioning procedures to gain insight into how evaluations are formed and may be changed. In evaluative conditioning, a conditioned stimulus (CS; e.g., an unfamiliar soda brand) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US) of affective value (e.g., a pleasant picture). Following this pairing, a change in CS liking may be observed (e.g., the soda brand is liked better). A question with far-reaching theoretical and practical implications is whether the change in CS liking is found when participants feel they do not remember the CS-US pairings at the time an evaluation is produced about the CS. Here, we introduce a new conditional judgment procedure-the two-button-sets (TBS) task-for probing evaluative conditioning effects without feelings of remembering about the valence of the US paired with the CS. In three experiments, the TBS is (1) is successfully validated; it is also used to (2) provide preliminary information on the feeling of remembering question, and (3) to examine an affect-consistent bias in memory judgments for CS-US pairings. Results do not support evaluative effects in the absence of feelings of remembering, and they oppose the view that affect-consistent bias is limited to memory uncertainty. We discuss these findings in light of previous evidence and of dual-learning models of attitudes. We also discuss limitations and research avenues related to the new procedure.