Resistance to extinction of human evaluative conditioning using a between‐subjects design

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to examine whether the resistance to extinction obtained in evaluative conditioning (EC) studies implies that EC is a qualitatively distinct form of classical conditioning (Baeyens, Eelen, & Crombez, 1995a) or whether it is the result of an nonassociative artefact (Field & Davey, 1997, 1998, 1999). Both experiments included between‐subjects control groups in addition to standard within‐subjects control conditions. In Experiment 1, only verbal ratings were measured in order to evaluate the effect of postacquisition CS‐only exposures on EC whereas in Experiment 2, verbal ratings and postextinction priming effects were measured. The results showed that the EC effects are demonstrable in a between‐subjects design and that the extinction procedure did not have any influence on the acquired evaluative value of CSs regardless of whether the verbal ratings or the priming effects were used as dependent variables. The present results provide evidence that EC is resistant to extinction and suggest an interpretation of EC as a qualitatively distinct form of associative learning.

Notes

Correspondence should be addressed to E. Díaz, Department of Experimental Psychology, C/Camilo Jose Cela, s/n, 41018 Seville, Spain; (e‐mail: [email protected].

This research was supported by a DGES (Spanish government) BSO2000‐0323‐C02‐01 grant. The authors wish to thank Dirk Hermans, Deb Vansteenwegen, Paul Eelen, Tom Becker, Geert Crombez, Natividad Sanchez, and Gonzalo De la Casa for their help at various stages of the study or their helpful comments and thoughts.

The selection of this contingency relation was motivated by the design of other studies at our lab, which had objectives that have no direct relation with the present investigation.