Associative and Propositional Processes in Human Evaluative Conditioning

任何人的一项基本任务是了解环境中哪些物体是积极的，哪些是消极的。这个想法与所有人类都倾向于寻求快乐并试图避免痛苦的观念相呼应。评价性条件反射（evaluative conditioning）是获得对客体的积极和消极反应的最重要的方法之一，其涉及由于条件刺激（CS）与积极或消极的非条件刺激（US）配对而引起的对条件刺激（CS）的评价的改变。评价性条件作用通常用记忆中联想链接的自动形成来解释。最近，然而，联想理论受到了挑战的命题理论属性的变化，在评价CS的非自动收购和验证的命题知识CS-US的关系在环境中。目前的项目的主要目标是推进的想法，联想和命题的过程并不相互排斥，而是同时有助于评价条件反射的影响。具体而言，有人认为，这两种学习机制可以独立地影响一个对象的心理表征，从而对该对象的评价反应。该项目的研究结果将对科学理解对环境中物体获得积极和消极反应的基本机制产生重要影响。此外，预期的调查结果将具有重要的社会经济影响，因为它们与获得和改变评价性答复的一系列广泛问题相关。

An essential task for any human being is to learn which objects in the environment are positive and which ones are negative. This idea resonates with the notion that all human beings tend to seek pleasure and try to avoid pain. One of the most important ways to acquire positive and negative responses to objects is evaluative conditioning, which involves the change in the evaluation of a conditioned stimulus (CS) due to its pairing with a positive or negative unconditioned stimulus (US). Evaluative conditioning effects are typically explained by the automatic formation of associative links in memory. More recently, however, associative theories have been challenged by propositional theories which attribute changes in the evaluation of a CS to the non-automatic acquisition and validation of propositional knowledge about CS-US relations in the environment. The main goal of the current project is to advance the idea that associative and propositional processes are not mutually exclusive, but instead contribute simultaneously to evaluative conditioning effects. Specifically, it is argued that the two learning mechanisms can independently influence the mental representation of an object, and thereby evaluative responses to that object. The findings of this project will have important implications for the scientific understanding of the fundamental mechanisms underlying the acquisition of positive and negative responses to objects in the environment. In addition, the expected findings will have important socio-economic implications due to their relevance for a wide range of questions related to the acquisition and change of evaluative responses.