Evaluative conditioning of artificial grammars: Evidence that non-conscious structures bias affective evaluations of novel stimuli (original) (raw)

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is the process through which an initially-neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus; CS) acquires emotional valence, after being paired with an emotional stimulus (unconditioned stimulus; US). An important issue regards whether, when participants are unaware of the CS-US contingency, the affective valence can generalize to new stimuli that share similarities with the CS. Previous studies have shown that generalization of EC effects appears only when participants are aware of the contingencies, but we suggest that this is because the contingencies typically used in EC research are salient and easy to detect consciously. We report a preregistered study in which participants (N = 217) were exposed to letter strings generated from two complex artificial grammars that are difficult to decipher consciously. Stimuli from one grammar were paired with positive USs, while those from the other grammar were paired with negative USs. Subsequently, participants evaluated...