CS as an effect: action-based evaluative conditioning depends on temporal contiguity

ABSTRACT

In this study, we analysed Evaluative Conditioning (EC) with a recently introduced S-R paradigm [Blask et al., 2016. Doing is for feeling. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145(10), 1263–1268], in which valence first transfers from an affective US to a response and then from this valence-laden response to a novel CS. Based on action control research, the CS in this procedure could be interpreted as an effect of the response. Hence, temporal contiguity of the valence-laden response and the CS should determine whether EC occurs. We tested this hypothesis in an experiment, in which we varied the time interval between the response and the subsequent CS. Results show that EC effects occurred only under conditions of high temporal contiguity thus supporting our assumptions. This finding sheds light on the processes underlying action-based EC in particular and evaluative learning in general.

KEYWORDS:

• Action-based EC
• temporal contiguity
• action control

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) under Grant WA 1344/9-1 and Grant FR 2133/10-1 to Eva Walther and Christian Frings.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Note that the result pattern does not change when including the data from all participants in the analyses. In particular, the EC effect in the RSI 0 ms condition and more importantly the interaction of EC and RSI remain significant.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) [grant number WA 1344/9-1 and FR 2133/10-1] to Eva Walther and Christian Frings.