Evaluative conditioning (EC) is a change in liking of neutral conditioned stimuli (CS) following pairings with positive or negative stimuli (unconditioned stimulus, US). A dissociation has been reported between US expectancy and CS evaluation in extinction learning: When CSs are presented alone subsequent to CS-US pairings, participants cease to…

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is the valence change of a (typically neutral) stimulus (CS) that is due to the previous pairing with another (typically valent) stimulus (US). It has been repeatedly shown that EC effects are stronger or existent only if participants know which US was paired with which CS. Knowledge of the CS-US pairings is usually…

The extent to which semantic differential ratings of trigrams remain consistent over a four-week retention period following pairing with positive or negative attitudinal words was determined. The trigrams initially served as stimulus items in a paired associate list consisting of both positive and negative evaluative response terms; and rating and…

An experiement was conducted to test the hypothesis that interest inventory items would function as reinforcing stimuli in a visual discrimination task. When previously rated liked and disliked items from the Strong Vocational Interest Blank were differentially presented following one of two responses, subjects learned to respond to the stimulus…

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the PhD degree at the University of Connecticut and supported by Grant M-1099 from the National Institute of Mental Health.