Aversive conditioning under conditions of restricted awareness: Effects on spatial cueing

Abstract

In the literature on aversive conditioning there is still debate on the role of awareness. According to some authors, affective learning can occur with or without contingency learning (dual-process model), whereas others argue that a single process produces both affective responses and contingency knowledge. Although many studies have investigated these models, the results to date are inconclusive. Based on a review of the literature, a new series of experiments was designed to examine aversive conditioning in the absence of contingency awareness. In the present study we examined the effects of subliminal aversive conditioning on a spatial cueing task. Awareness was stringently tested after conditioning. Three kinds of awareness were distinguished: contingency awareness (awareness of the CS−US contingencies, where CS is the conditioned stimulus, and US is the unconditioned stimulus), perceptual awareness (awareness of the perceptual differences between the CSs), and US expectancy (awareness of a threat feeling when confronted with the CS+, but not when confronted with the CS−). The results of three experiments demonstrated that responses on the spatial cueing task were modulated by subliminal aversive conditioning. Importantly, none of the participants was contingency aware or able to perceptually discriminate between the conditioned stimuli. However, in Experiment 3, only those participants showing some level of postconditioning expectancy awareness exhibited conditioning effects. These experiments suggest that subliminal aversive conditioning produces small but significant effects, which may be modulated by expectancy awareness.

Keywords:

• Conditioning
• Awareness
• Contingency
• Fear
• Attention

An Raes is research fellow of the Scientific Research Foundation, Flanders (FWO), Belgium. The authors would like to thank Jan De Houwer for his useful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript.

Notes

¹ The USs were loaded on the moment that the participants responded to the target. The loading of large bmp files probably caused interference with the registration of RTs on reinforced trials. Therefore, these trials were excluded from further analyses.