Cognitive Factors in Eyelid Conditioning

With instructions not to try to figure out the experiment nor to aid or inhibit their natural responses, Ss report even complex CS‐UCS contingencies quite accurately after most single cue and differential eyelid conditioning experiments. These cognitions, however, are rarely related to the S's conditioning performance. With a less obvious discriminandum, grammaticality of simple adjective‐noun phrases, accuracy of reporting the differential cue was enhanced significantly when high imagery nouns were employed, and Ss unable to report the discriminandum learned no conditioned discrimination. Only those “aware’Ss who gave the V‐form of the eyelid CR topography showed conditioned discrimination that was significantly superior to that of “unaware’Ss. Many kinds of cognitions are conditioned in the eyelid experiments, and awareness of CS‐UCS contingencies may be a necessary but certainly not a sufficient condition for learning to occur. Awareness of CS‐CR contingencies is almost never reported and consequently is unrelated to conditioning performance. In eyelid conditioning, cognitions may be viewed as simply another class of responses that are conditioned. Feedback from other CRs may, or may not, influence the course of conditioning.