Abstract
Prior research showed that the degree of statistical contingency between the presence of stimuli moderates changes in expectancies about the presence of those stimuli (i.e., expectancy learning) but not changes in the liking of those stimuli (i.e., evaluative conditioning). This dissociation is typically interpreted as evidence for dual process models of associative learning. We tested an alternative account according to which both types of learning rely on a single process propositional learning mechanism but reflect different kinds of propositional beliefs. In line with the idea that changes in liking reflect beliefs about stimulus co-occurrences whereas changes in expectancy reflect beliefs about stimulus contingency, we found that evaluative ratings depended only on instructions about whether a stimulus would co-occur with a positive or negative stimulus whereas expectancy ratings were influenced also by instructions about individual stimulus presentations.
Highlights
When trying to map the mental processes that mediate behavior, cognitive psychologists often rely on dissociations, that is, the differential impact of experimental manipulations on different behavioral phenomena
We focus on one such dissociation in research on learning, namely the observation that statistical contingency matters for expectancy learning but not for evaluative conditioning
Both types of learning involve effects of stimulus pairings but differ with regard to the variable that changes as the result of the pairings
Summary
When trying to map the mental processes that mediate behavior, cognitive psychologists often rely on dissociations, that is, the differential impact of experimental manipulations on different behavioral phenomena (see Dunn & Kirsner, 2003, for a succinct discussion). Expectancy learning can be defined as the impact of stimulus pairings on the extent to which the presence of one of these stimuli generates an expectancy of the presence of the other stimulus (e.g., Hermans, Vansteenwegen, Crombez, Baeyens, & Eelen, 2002). After pairing the picture of a human face and an electric shock, presentation of the face leads to an expectancy of the shock as indicated by ratings or physiological responses (e.g., skin conductance; Hermans et al, 2002; Vansteenwegen, Francken, Vervliet, De Clercq, & Eelen, 2006) Both types of learning involve effects of stimulus pairings (i.e., they are both instances of associative learning) but differ with regard to the variable that changes as the result of the pairings (i.e., liking vs expectancy). There is abundant evidence that mere instructions about stimulus pairings are sufficient to produce changes in liking and expectancies (e.g., Cook & Harris, 1937; Gast & De Houwer, 2013; Mertens, Boddez, Sevenster, Engelhard, & De Houwer, 2018), it has not yet been tested whether a manipulation of the content of these instructions can have a differential impact on changes in liking and expectancies
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