Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T03:07:04.949Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Unconscious Learning. Conditioning to Subliminal Visual Stimuli

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2014

Juan P. Núñez  and
Francisco de Vicente
Juan P. Núñez*
Affiliation:
University Pontificia Comillas of Madrid
Francisco de Vicente*
Affiliation:
University Complutense of Madrid
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to either Juan P. Núñez, Departamento de Psicología, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas, Universidad Pontificia de Comillas de Madrid, C/ Universidad de Comillas n° 3, 28049, Madrid (Spain), or to Francisco de Vicente, Departamento de Psicología Básica I, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Campus de Somosaguas, 28223, Madrid (Spain). E-mail: [email protected]or, [email protected]
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to either Juan P. Núñez, Departamento de Psicología, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas, Universidad Pontificia de Comillas de Madrid, C/ Universidad de Comillas n° 3, 28049, Madrid (Spain), or to Francisco de Vicente, Departamento de Psicología Básica I, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Campus de Somosaguas, 28223, Madrid (Spain). E-mail: [email protected]or, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The role of consciousness in Pavlovian conditioning was examined in two experiments in which visually masked neutral words were used as the conditioned stimuli (CS) and an electric shock as the unconditioned stimulus (US). The inter-stimulus interval (ISI) was established individually. A detection threshold was used in Experiment 1 and an identification threshold in Experiment 2. The primary dependent variable was the skin conductance response (SCR). Results showed that the conditioned response (CR) was acquired by 58% of participants who perceived stimuli above the identification threshold, 50% of participants who perceived stimuli below the detection threshold, and 11% of participants who perceived stimuli below the identification threshold, but above the detection threshold. These results suggest that consciousness of the CS-US contingency is not a necessary condition for acquiring a CR of the autonomous nervous system (ANS).

Se analizó el papel de la consciencia en el condicionamiento pavloviano mediante dos experimentos en los que se utilizaron, como estímulos condicionados (ECs), palabras neutras visualmente enmascaradas y, como estímulo incondicionado (EI), un shock eléctrico. El intervalo inter-estímulo se estableció individualmente. Se utilizó un umbral de detección en el Experimento 1 y un umbral de identificación en el Experimento 2. La principal variable dependiente fue la respuesta de conductancia de la piel. Los resultados mostraron que la respuesta condicionada (RC) fue adquirida por el 58% de los sujetos que percibieron los estímulos por encima del umbral de identificación, por el 50% de los sujetos que percibieron los estímulos por debajo del umbral de detección y por el 11% de los sujetos que percibieron los estímulos por debajo del umbral de identificación, pero por encima del umbral de detección. Estos resultados sugieren que la conciencia de la contingencia EC-EI no es condición necesaria para adquirir una RC del sistema nervioso autónomo.

Keywords

Pavlovian conditioningbackward maskingsubliminal perceptionconscious andunconscious learningcondicionamiento pavlovianoenmascaramiento hacia atráspercepción subliminalaprendizaje consciente e inconsciente
Type
Articles
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , May 2004 , pp. 13 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alphonse, J., & Rodríguez, E. C. (1964). Frequency dictionary of Spanish words. London: Mouton.Google Scholar
Andrade, J. (1995). Learning during anaesthesia: A review. British Journal of Psychology, 86, 479–506.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anstey, E., & Pichot, P. (1955). Domino-48 Intelligence Test. Paris: Les Editions du Centre de Psychologie Appliquée. [Spanish version: Test de inteligencia Dominó 48. Madrid: TEA, 1990].Google Scholar
Baer, P. E., & Fuhrer, M. J. (1982). Cognitive factors in the concurrent differential conditioning of eyelid and skin conductance responses. Memory and Cognition, 10, 135–140.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baeyens, F., Hermans, D., & Eelen, P. (1993). The role of CS—US contingency in human evaluative conditioning. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 31, 731–737.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baron, A., & Galizio, M. (1983). Instrumental control of human operant behavior. Psychological Record, 33, 495–520.Google Scholar
Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1997). Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy. Science, 275, 1293–1294.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bechara, A., Tranel, D., Damasio, H., Adolphs, R., Rockland, C., & Damasio, A. R. (1995). Double dissociation of conditioning and declarative knowledge relative to the amygdala and hippocampus in humans. Science, 269, 1115–1118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, D. C. (1994). Implicit learning: Twenty-five years on. A tutorial. In Umiltá, C. & Moscovitch, Ch. (Eds.), Attention and performance XV: Conscious and non-conscious information processing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bornstein, R. F. (1992). Inhibitory effects of awareness on affective responding: Implications for the affect-cognition relationship. In Clark, M. S. (Ed.), Emotion. Review of personality and social psychology (Vol. 13, pp. 235–255). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Bower, G. H. (1981). Mood and memory. American Psychologist, 36, 129–148.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bowers, K.S. (1984). On being unconsciously influenced and informed. In K.S., Bowers & D., Meinchenbaum (Eds.), The unconscious reconsidered. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Broadbent, D. E., Fitzgerald, P., & Broadbent, H. P. (1986). Implicit and explicit knowledge in the control of complex systems. British Journal of Psychology, 77, 35–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brody, N. (1989). Unconscious learning of rules: Comment on Reber's analysis of implicit learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118, 236–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Catell, R.B. (1949). Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF). Champaign, IL: IPAT. [Spanish version: Cuestionario factorial de personalidad 16 PF. Madrid: TEA, 1988].Google Scholar
Cheesman, J., & Merikle, P. M. (1984). Priming with and without awareness. Perception and Psychophysics, 36, 387–395.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cherry, C. (1953). Some experiments on the reception of speech with one and with two ears. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 25, 975–979.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, B. H. (1964). Role of awareness in meaning established by classical conditioning. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 67, 373–378.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Corteen, R. S., & Wood, B. (1972). Autonomic responses to shock-associated words in an unattended channel. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 94, 308–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dagenbach, D., Carr, T. H., & Wilhelmsen, A. L. (1989). Task-induced strategies and near-threshold priming: Conscious influences on unconscious perception. Journal of Memory and Language, 28, 412–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes' error. Emotion, reason and the human brain. New York: Putnam.Google Scholar
Daum, I., Channon, S., & Canavar, A. (1989). Classical conditioning in patients with severe memory problems. Journal of Neurology and Neurosurgery Psychiatry, 52, 47–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davey, G. C. L. (1992a). Classical conditioning and the acquisition of human fears and phobias: A review and synthesis of the literature. Advances of Behavior Research and Therapy, 14, 29–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davey, G. C. L. (1992b). An expectancy model of laboratory preparedness effects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 121, 24–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davey, G. C. L. (1994). Is evaluative conditioning a qualitativelydistinct form of classical conditioning? Behavior Research and Therapy, 32, 307–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawson, M. E., & Grings, W. W. (1968). Comparison of classical conditioning and relational learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 76, 227–231.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Houwer, J., Hendrickx, H., & Baeyens, F. (1997). Evaluative learning with «subliminally» presented stimuli. Consciousness and Cognition: An International Journal, 6, 87–107.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Debner, J. A, & Jacoby, L. L. (1994). Unconscious perception: Attention, awareness, and control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 20, 304–317.Google ScholarPubMed
Dixon, N. F. (1981). Preconscious processing. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Esteves, F., & Öhman, A. (1993). Masking the face: Recognition of emotional facial expressions as a function of the parameters of backward masking. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 34, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Esteves, F., Parra, C., Dimberg, U., & Öhman, A. (1994). Nonconscious associative learning: Pavlovian conditioning of skin conductance responses to masked fear-relevant facial stimuli. Psychophysiology, 31, 375–385.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frijda, N. H. (1988). The laws of emotion. American Psychologist, 43, 349–358.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fuhrer, M. J., & Baer, P. E. (1980). Cognitive factors in CS—UCS interval effects in the differential conditioning and extinction of skin conductance responses. Biological Psychology, 10, 283–298.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gabrieli, J.D., McGlinchey, B.R., Carrillo, M.C., Gluck, M.A., Cermack, L.S., & Disterhoft, J.F. (1995). Intact delay-eyeblink classical conditioning in amnesia. Behavioral Neuroscience,109, 819–827.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ghoneim, M. M., Block, R. I., & Fowles, D. C. (1992). No evidence of classical conditioning of electrodermal responses during anesthesia. Anesthesiology, 76, 682–688.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grant, D. A. (1973). Cognitive factors in eyelid conditioning. Psychophysiology, 10, 75–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greenspoon, J. (1963). Reply to Spielberger and De Nike: “Operant conditioning of plural nouns: A failure to replicate the Greenspoon effect”. Psychological Reports, 12, 29–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayes, N. A., & Broadbent, D. E. (1988). Two modes of learning for interactive tasks. Cognition, 28, 249–276.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hefferline, R. J., & Keenan, B. (1961). Amplitude-induction gradient of a small operant in an escape-avoidance situation. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 4, 41–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holender, D. (1986). Semantic activation without conscious identification in dichotic listening, parafoveal vision, and visual masking: A survey and appraisal. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 9, 1–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isen, A., Shalker, T., Clark, M., & Karp, L. (1978). Affect, accessibility of material in memory, and behavior: A cognitive loop? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Iwata, J., LeDoux, J. E., Meeley, M. P., Arneric, S., & Reis, D. J. (1986). Intrinsic neurons in the amygdaloid field projected to by the medial geniculate body mediate emotional responses conditioned to acoustic stimuli. Brain Research, 383, 195–214.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Izard, C. E. (1977). Human emotions. New York: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1987). Consciousness and the computational mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jelicic, M., Bonke, B., Wolters, G., & Phaf, R. H. (1992). Implicit memory for words presented during anaesthesia. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 4, 71–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katkin, E. (2001): Nonconscious fear conditioning, visceral perception, and the development of gut feelings. Psychological Science, 12, 366–370.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krosnick, J. A., Betz, A. L., Jussin, L. J., & Lynn, A. R. (1992). Subliminal conditioning of attitudes. Personal and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 152–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landis, T., Christen, L., & Graves, R. (1992). Dissociated hemispheric and stimulus effects upon affective choice and recognition.International Journal of Neuroscience, 62, 81–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lazarus, R. S., & Mc Cleary, R. A. (1951). Automatic discrimination without awareness: A study of subception. Psychological Review, 58, 113–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LeDoux, J. E. (1990). Information flow for sensation to emotion: Plasticity in the neural computation of stimulus values. In Gabriel, M. & Moore, J. (Eds.), Neurocomputation and learning: Foundation and adaptivenetworks (pp. 3–52). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
LeDoux, J. E. (1996). The emotional brain: The mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
LeDoux, J. E., Iwata, J., Cicchetti, P., & Reis, D. J. (1988). Different projections of the central amygdaloid nucleus mediate autonomic and behavioral correlates of conditioned fear. Journal of Neuroscience, 8, 2517–2529.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lee, Y. (1995). Effects of learning contexts on implicit and explicit learning. Memory and Cognition, 23, 723–734.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levey, A. B., & Martin, I. (1975). Classical conditioning of human «evaluative» responses. Behavior Research and Therapy, 13, 221–226.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Likken, D. T. (1972). Range correction applied to Heart rate and to GSR data. Psychophysiology, 9, 373–379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Likken, D. T., & Venables, P. H. (1971). Direct measurement of skin conductance: A proposal for standardization. Psychophysiology, 8, 656–672.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowe, C. F. (1983). Radical behaviorism and human psychology.In Davey, G. C. L. (Ed.), Animal models of human behavior (pp. 71–93). Chichester, UK: Wiley.Google Scholar
Mandler, G. (1992). Toward a theory of consciousness. In H. Geissler, , Link, S.W., & Townsend, J.T. (Eds.), Cognition, information processing and psychophysics (pp. 43–65). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Marcel, A. J. (1983a). Conscious and unconscious perception: Experiments on visual masking and word recognition. Cognitive Psychology, 15, 197–237.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marcel, A. J. (1983b). Conscious and unconscious perception: An approach to the relations between phenomenal experience and perceptual processes. Cognitive Psychology, 15, 238–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marcos, J. L. (1997). Condicionamiento clásico electrodérmico I y II. In Marcos, J. L. (Coord.), Técnicas de condicionamiento humano (pp. 27–59). Madrid: Universitas.Google Scholar
Merikle, R M. (1982). Unconscious perception revisited. Perception and Psychophysics, 31, 298–301.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Merikle, P. M., Joordens, S., & Stolz, J. A. (1995). Measuring the relative magnitude of unconscious influences. Consciousnessand Cognition, 4, 422–439.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meulemans, T., & Van Der Linden, M. (1997). Does artificial grammar learning paradigm involve the acquisition of complex information? Psychologica Belgica, 37, 69–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mighetto, D., & Rosengren, P. (1984). Proyecto PE 77.Microfichas. Banco de datos de prensa española, 1977. Departamento de Lenguas Romances, Sección Lengua Española, Universidad de Göteborg.Google Scholar
Montare, A. (1992). Conditioning reaction time: Evidence for a process of conditioned automatization. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 75, 755–770.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Murphy, S. T., & Zajonc, R. B. (1993). Affect, cognition and awareness: Affective priming with optimal and suboptimal stimulus exposures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 723–739.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Öhman, A. (1998). Emotional conditioning to masked stimuli: Expectancies for aversive outcomes following nonrecognized fear-relevant stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 127, 69–82.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Öhman, A. (2000). Unconscious emotion: Evolutionary perspectives, psychophysiological data and neuropsychological mechanisms. In R., Lane & N., Lynn (Eds.), Cognitive neuroscience of emotion (pp. 296–327). London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Öhman, A., Dimberg, U., & Esteves, F. (1989).Preattentive activation of aversive emotions. In Archer, T. & Nilsson, L-G. (Eds.), Aversion, avoidance and anxiety. Perspectives on aversively motivated behavior (pp. 169–193). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Öhman, A., & Soares, J. (1993). On the automatic nature of phobic fear: Conditioning electrodermal responses to masked fear-relevant stimuli. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 121–132.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Öhman, A., & Soares, J. (1998). Emotional conditioning to masked stimuli: Expectancies for aversive outcomes following nonrecognized fear-relevant stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 127, 69–82.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pelechano, V., & Baguena, Mª. J. (1983). Un cuestionario de Locus of Control (LUCAM). Análisis y Modificación de Conducta, 9, 5–46.Google Scholar
Perruchet, P., Gallego, J., & Pacteau, C. (1992). A reinterpretation of some earlier evidence for abstractiveness of implicit implicitly acquired learning. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 44A, 193–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pribram, K. H., & Martín, J. (1995). Cerebro y conciencia. Madrid: Díaz de Santos.Google Scholar
Prokasy, W. F., & Ebel, H. C. (1967). Three components of the classically conditioned GSR in human subjects. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 73, 247–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Real Academia Española (1992). Diccionario de la lengua española (21st ed.). Madrid: Espasa Calpe.Google Scholar
Reber, A. S. (1989). Implicit learning and tacit knowledge. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118, 219–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reber, A. S., Kassin, S. M., Lewis, S., & Cantor, G. (1980). On the relationship between implicit and explicit modes in the learning of a complex rule structure. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6, 492–502.Google Scholar
Reingold, E. M., & Merikle, P. M. (1988). Using direct and indirect measures to study perception without awareness. Perception and Psychophysics, 44, 563–575.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ross, L. E., Ferreira, M. C., & Ross, S. M. (1974). Backward masking of conditioned stimuli: Effects on differential and single-cue classical conditioning performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 103, 603–613.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rumelhart, D. E. (1977). An introduction to human information processing. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Sachs, L. (1969). Statistische Auswertungsmethoden. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. [Spanish version: Estadística aplicada. Madrid: Labor, 1978].Google Scholar
Shanks, D. R. (2002). Autonomic and eyeblink conditioning are closely related to contingency awareness: Reply to Wiens and Öhman (2002) and Manns et al. (2002). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 28, 38–42.Google ScholarPubMed
Shanks, D. R., & Dickinson, A. (1990). Contingency awareness in evaluative conditioning: A comment on Baeyens, Eelen, and Van den Bergh. Cognition and Emotion, 4, 19–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shanks, D. R., & Dickinson, A. (1991). Instrumental judgement and performance under variations in action-outcome contingency and contiguity. Memory and Cognition, 19, 353–360.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shanks, D. R., Green, R. E., & Kolodny, J. (1994).A critical examination of the evidence for nonconscious (implicit) learning. In Umiltá, C. & Moscovitch, M. (Eds.), Attention and performance XV: Conscious and non-conscious information processing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Shiffrin, R. M., & Schneider, W. (1977). Controlled and automatic human information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending and a general theory. Psychological Review, 84, 127–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shimoff, E., Catania, A. C., & Matthews, B. A. (1981). Uninstructed human responding: Sensitivity of low rate performance to schedule contingencies. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 36, 207–220.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Snodgrass, M., Shevrin, H., & Kopka, M. (1993). The mediation of intentional judgments by unconscious perceptions: The influences of task strategy, task preference, word meaning, and motivation. Consciousness and Cognition, 2, 169–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soares, J., & Öhman, A. (1993a). Preattentive processing, preparedness and phobias: Effects of instruction on conditioned electrodermal responses to masked and non-masked fear-relevant stimuli. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 31, 87–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Soares, J., & Öhman, A. (1993b). Backward maskingand skin conductance responses after conditioning to nonfeared but fear-relevant stimuli in fearful subjects. Psychophysiology, 30, 460–466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Svartdal, F. (1992). Sensitivity to nonverbal operant contingencies: Do limited processing resources affect operant conditioning in humans? Learning and Motivation, 23, 383–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Svartdal, F., & Mortensen, T. (1993). Effects of reinforcer value on sensitivity to non-verbal operant contingencies in humans. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 46A, 347–364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thurstone, L.L., & Yela, M. (1968). Test of perceptions and differences-faces. Madrid: TEA.Google Scholar
Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1993). The covert learning of affective valence does not require structures in hippocampal system or amygdala. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 5, 79–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Turner, C. W., & Fischler, I. S. (1993). Speeded testsof implicit knowledge. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory and Cognition, 19, 1165–1177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Selst, M., & Merikle, P. M. (1993). Perception below the objective threshold. Consciousness and Cognition, 2, 194–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velmans, M. (1991). Is human information processing conscious? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 14, 651–726.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Venables, P. H., & Christie, M. J. (1980). Electrodermal activity. In Martin, I. & Venables, P. H. (Eds.), Techniques in psychophysiology (pp. 3–67). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Wolford, G., Marchak, F., & Hughes, H. (1988). Practice effects in backward masking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14, 101–112.Google ScholarPubMed
Wong, P. S., Shevrin, H., & Williams, W. J. (1994). Conscious and nonconscious processes: An ERP index of an anticipatory response in aconditioning paradigm using visually masked stimuli. Psychophysiology, 31, 87–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zajonc, R. B. (1980). Feeling and thinking. Preferences need no inferences. American Psychologist, 35, 151–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar