Stimulus-Stimulus Versus Stimulus-Valence Learning in Evaluative Conditioning: Insights on the Ecological Conditions of Unconditioned Stimulus Revaluation Effects

Previous research into the influence of postconditioning revaluation of unconditioned stimuli (USs) on evaluative conditioning (EC) effects produced inconsistent results. One potential factor determining the sensitivity of EC to US revaluation is whether conditioned stimuli (CSs) get linked to valence (stimulus-valence learning) or the specific USs (stimulus-stimulus learning). The present research tested the ecological conditions of stimulus-valence learning and thereby US revaluation. In a sequential procedure, Experiment 1 paired CSs with either different USs of the same valence (one-to-many pairings) or the same US repeatedly (one-to-one pairings). Although EC effects were equally large, US revaluation effects and memory for CS-US pairings were reduced for one-to-many compared to one-to-one pairings. Experiments 2 and 3 presented one-to-many pairings in a forward versus backward manner but found the two versions of a sequential pairing procedure equally effective in inducing stimulus-valence learning. We present potential learning mechanisms underlying the outcomes and discuss approaches to their investigation.