Contingency awareness in evaluative conditioning: A comment on baeyens, eelen, and van den bergh

Abstract

Baeyens, Eelen, and van den Bergh (1989) make the following two claims: (1) the changes in evaluative judgements reported by Martin and Levey (1978) represent a reliable form of conditioning; and (2) that for such conditioning to occur it is not necessary that the subject should be aware of the contingencies between the stimuli. We argue that neither of these claims is supported by the evidence. We present the results of an experiment which challenge the first claim, and we discuss theoretical and methodological reasons why the second claim is difficult to substantiate. We then discuss the role of cognition in Pavlovian conditioning, and argue that there are major conceptual difficulties implicit in cognitive theories of conditioning. Finally, we claim that there is little reason to believe that the transfer of affect from one stimulus to another in a conditioning experiment is cognitively mediated.