Evaluative conditioning with foods as CSs and body shapes as USs: No evidence for sex differences, extinction, or overshadowing

Evaluative Conditioning: Past, Present, and Future

Evaluative conditioning (EC) research investigates changes in the evaluation of a stimulus after co-occurrence with an affective stimulus. To explain the motivation behind this research, this review begins with an overview of the history of EC research, followed by a summary of the state of the art with respect to three key questions. First, how should EC procedures be used to influence evaluation? We provide a guide based on evidence concerning the functional properties of EC effects. Second, how does the EC effect occur? We discuss the possible mediating cognitive processes and their automaticity. Third, are EC effects ubiquitous outside the lab? We discuss the evidence for the external validity of EC research. We conclude that the most important open questions pertain to the relevance of EC to everyday life and to the level of control that characterizes the processes that mediate the EC effect after people notice the stimulus co-occurrence.

Is Acquired Disgust More Difficult to Extinguish Than Acquired Fear? an Event-Related Potential Study

This study used the classical conditioned acquisition and extinction paradigm to compare which of the two emotions, acquired disgust and acquired fear, was more difficult to extinguish, based on behavioral assessments and the event-related potential (ERP) technique. Behavioral assessments revealed that, following successful conditioned extinction, acquired disgust was more difficult to extinguish. The ERP results showed that, at the early stage of P1, the amplitude of conditioned fear was significantly smaller than that of conditioned disgust, and both were significantly different from the amplitude under neutral conditions; at the middle stage of N2, the difference between the amplitudes of conditioned disgust and conditioned fear disappeared, but they were still significantly different from the amplitudes of conditioned neutral stimuli; at the late stage of P3, the difference between conditioned disgust and conditioned neutral stimuli disappeared, but the difference between conditioned fear and neutral stimuli remained, suggesting that acquired fear was more difficult to extinguish than acquired disgust in terms of how the brain works.

All I Need Is Two: The Clinical Potential of Adding Evaluative Pairing Procedures to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Changing Self-, Body- and Food-Related Evaluations

Pairing procedures are among the most frequently used paradigms for modifying evaluations of target stimuli related to oneself, an object, or a specific situation due to their repeated pairing with evaluative sources, such as positive or negative images or words. Because altered patterns of evaluations can be linked to the emergence and maintenance of disordered cognitions and behaviors, it has been suggested that pairing procedures may provide a simple yet effective means of complementing more complex intervention approaches, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Here, we summarize recent studies that explored the clinical potential of pairing procedures for improving self-esteem, body satisfaction, and food and consumption preferences. While no study has yet combined pairing procedures with CBT, there are several successful examples of pairing procedures in clinically relevant domains and clinical populations. We discuss potential sources of heterogeneity among findings, provide methodological recommendations, and conclude that pairing procedures may bear clinical potential as an add-on to classical psychotherapy.

Compulsive Conditioned Sexual Responding of Male Japanese Quail in Extinction

Previous experiments showed that following acquisition of an association between a terry-cloth object conditioned stimulus (CS) and a live female unconditioned stimulus (US), male quail increased the frequency of their copulations with the inanimate CS during subsequent CS-alone (extinction) trials. The present experiment was conducted to identify the potential factors responsible for this unexpected increase in conditioned sexual behavior during extinction. A total of 57 naïve male quail were given pairings of a terry-cloth CS with a live female during acquisition. A total of 36 of these quail (the approach responders) showed only conditioned approach response to the CS object, whereas the remaining 21 quail (the consummatory responders) also displayed copulatory or consummatory responses to the CS. In the extinction phase, these two sets of quail were divided into two subgroups: one subgroup received a female in their home cages while the other did not. Consummatory responders that were not exposed to a female quail in the home cage showed a significant increase in conditioned consummatory responding as the extinction trials progressed (i.e., compulsive conditioned sexual responding), whereas the other subgroup showed no change. However, both subgroups showed resistance to extinction in both conditioned approach and consummatory behavior. These findings indicate that the increase in copulation with the terry-cloth CS during extinction is possibly caused by US deprivation. The findings also suggest that conditioned copulation with the terry-cloth CS may lead to partial drive satisfaction, which may contribute to persistence of the behavior. Implications of these findings for paraphilias and compulsive sexual behavior are discussed.

Food Addiction: Implications for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Overeating

With the obesity epidemic being largely attributed to overeating, much research has been aimed at understanding the psychological causes of overeating and using this knowledge to develop targeted interventions. Here, we review this literature under a model of food addiction and present evidence according to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) criteria for substance use disorders. We review several innovative treatments related to a food addiction model ranging from cognitive intervention tasks to neuromodulation techniques. We conclude that there is evidence to suggest that, for some individuals, food can induce addictive-type behaviours similar to those seen with other addictive substances. However, with several DSM-5 criteria having limited application to overeating, the term 'food addiction' is likely to apply only in a minority of cases. Nevertheless, research investigating the underlying psychological causes of overeating within the context of food addiction has led to some novel and potentially effective interventions. Understanding the similarities and differences between the addictive characteristics of food and illicit substances should prove fruitful in further developing these interventions.

Response production during extinction training is not sufficient for extinction of evaluative conditioning

Two high-powered experiments examined the role of evaluative response production in the extinction of evaluative conditioning (EC) by positioning EC in the procedural and conceptual framework of classical conditioning (CC). According to Rescorla's response inhibition hypothesis, more frequent responding during extinction training results in larger extinction during testing. Experiment 1 used three extinction conditions following response acquisition in an EC procedure: evaluative responses were measured only after extinction; after acquisition and after extinction; or were continuously measured after acquisition, during extinction and after extinction. Based on Rescorla's response inhibition hypothesis, we predicted that extinction of EC would be the highest in the third condition. Experiment 2 was aimed at further facilitating extinction of EC by encouraging participants to experience that their evaluation may change over the course of the experiment. To this end, half of the participants completed pre- and post-acquisition ratings prior to practicing continuous response expression in the extinction phase. Contrary to our predictions, no extinction of EC was observed in either of these experiments. We conclude that Rescorla's inhibition response hypothesis may not apply to EC and discuss the theoretical implications of this finding.

Simple First: A Skeleton for an Evaluative Learning Model

Simple firstis our name for a set of hypotheses that we have found useful in our research on evaluative learning. The hypotheses are: (1) It is easier to encode and retrieve information that two concepts are linked than information about how they are linked; (2) It is easier to store and retrieve information than to make an inference based on that information; (3) When people encounter an object and memory activates valence that is mentally linked to that object, they consider the activation valid evidence that the activated valence characterizes the object. We demonstrate how these hypotheses generate useful assumptions about Evaluative Conditioning, and open paths for further research on evaluative learning and evaluation.

Neural correlates of appetitive extinction in humans

Appetitive extinction receives attention as an important model for the treatment of psychiatric disorders. However, in humans, its underlying neural correlates remain unknown. To close this gap, we investigated appetitive acquisition and extinction with fMRI in a 2-day monetary incentive delay paradigm. During appetitive conditioning, one stimulus (CS+) was paired with monetary reward, while another stimulus (CS−) was never rewarded. Twenty-four hours later, subjects underwent extinction, in which neither CS was reinforced. Appetitive conditioning elicited stronger skin conductance responses to the CS+ as compared with the CS−. Regarding subjective ratings, the CS+ was rated more pleasant and arousing than the CS− after conditioning. Furthermore, fMRI-results (CS+ − CS−) showed activation of the reward circuitry including amygdala, midbrain and striatal areas. During extinction, conditioned responses were successfully extinguished. In the early phase of extinction, we found a significant activation of the caudate, the hippocampus, the dorsal and ventral anterior cingulate cortex (dACC and vACC). In the late phase, we found significant activation of the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and the amygdala. Correlational analyses with subjective ratings linked extinction success to the vACC and the NAcc, while associating the dACC with reduced extinction. The results reveal neural correlates of appetitive extinction in humans and extend assumptions from models for human extinction learning.

Learning to Dislike Chocolate: Conditioning Negative Attitudes toward Chocolate and Its Effect on Chocolate Consumption

Evaluative conditioning (EC) procedures can be used to form and change attitudes toward a wide variety of objects. The current study examined the effects of a negative EC procedure on attitudes toward chocolate, and whether it influenced chocolate evaluation and consumption. Participants were randomly assigned to the experimental condition in which chocolate images were paired with negative stimuli, or the control condition in which chocolate images were randomly paired with positive stimuli (50%) and negative stimuli (50%). Explicit and implicit attitudes toward chocolate images were collected. During an ostensible taste test, chocolate evaluation and consumption were assessed. Results revealed that compared to participants in the control condition, participants in the experimental condition showed more negative explicit and implicit attitudes toward chocolate images and evaluated chocolate more negatively during the taste test. However, chocolate consumption did not differ between experimental and control conditions. These findings suggest that pairing chocolate with negative stimuli can influence attitudes toward chocolate, though behavioral effects are absent. Intervention applications of EC provide avenues for future research and practices.

Neuroticism and extraversion moderate neural responses and effective connectivity during appetitive conditioning

Classical appetitive conditioning constitutes a basic learning process through which environmental stimuli can be associated with reward. Previous studies showed that individual differences in neuroticism and extraversion influence emotional processing and have been shown to modulate neural activity in subcortical and prefrontal areas in response to emotional stimuli. However, the role of individual differences in appetitive conditioning has so far not been investigated in detail. The aim of this study was to assess the association between neuroticism and extraversion with neural activity and connectivity during appetitive conditioning. The conditioned stimulus (CS) was either a picture of a dish or a cup. One stimulus (CS+) was paired with a monetary reward and the other stimulus (CS-) was associated with its absence while hemodynamic activity was measured by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging. A significant negative correlation of neuroticism scores with amygdala activity was observed during appetitive conditioning. Further, extraversion was positively associated with responses in the hippocampus and the thalamus. In addition, effective connectivity between the amygdala as a seed region and the anterior cingulate cortex, the insula, and the thalamus was negatively correlated with neuroticism scores and positively correlated with extraversion scores. The results may indicate a neural correlate for the deficits in appetitive learning in subjects with high neuroticism scores and point to a facilitating effect of extraversion on reward-related learning. Hum Brain Mapp 37:2992-3002, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Altered Appetitive Conditioning and Neural Connectivity in Subjects With Compulsive Sexual Behavior

INTRODUCTION

There has been growing interest in a better understanding of the etiology of compulsive sexual behavior (CSB). It is assumed that facilitated appetitive conditioning might be an important mechanism for the development and maintenance of CSB, but no study thus far has investigated these processes.

AIM

To explore group differences in neural activity associated with appetitive conditioning and connectivity in subjects with CSB and a healthy control group.

METHODS

Two groups (20 subjects with CSB and 20 controls) were exposed to an appetitive conditioning paradigm during a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, in which a neutral stimulus (CS+) predicted visual sexual stimuli and a second stimulus (CS-) did not.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Blood oxygen level-dependent responses and psychophysiologic interaction.

RESULTS

As a main result, we found increased amygdala activity during appetitive conditioning for the CS+ vs the CS- and decreased coupling between the ventral striatum and prefrontal cortex in the CSB vs control group.

CONCLUSION

The findings show that neural correlates of appetitive conditioning and neural connectivity are altered in patients with CSB. The increased amygdala activation might reflect facilitated conditioning processes in patients with CSB. In addition, the observed decreased coupling could be interpreted as a marker for impaired emotion regulation success in this group.

Eating on impulse: Implicit attitudes, self-regulatory resources, and trait self-control as determinants of food consumption

Self-regulatory resources and trait self-control have been found to moderate the impulse-behavior relationship. The current study investigated whether the interaction of self-regulatory resources and trait self-control moderates the association between implicit attitudes and food consumption. One hundred twenty female participants were randomly assigned to either a depletion condition in which their self-regulatory resources were reduced or a no-depletion condition. Participants' implicit attitudes for chocolate were measured with the Single Category Implicit Association Test and self-report measures of trait self-control were collected. The dependent variable was chocolate consumption in an ostensible taste and rate task. Implicit attitudes predicted chocolate consumption in depleted participants but not in non-depleted participants. However, this predictive power of implicit attitudes on eating in depleted condition disappeared in participants with high trait self-control. Thus, trait self-control and self-regulatory resources interact to moderate the prediction of implicit attitude on eating behavior. Results suggest that high trait self-control buffers the effect of self-regulatory depletion on impulsive eating.

Cue competition in evaluative conditioning as a function of the learning process

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is the change in the valence of a stimulus resulting from pairings with an affective (unconditioned) stimulus (US). With some exceptions, previous work has indicated that this form of conditioning might be insensitive to cue competition effects such as blocking and overshadowing. Here we assessed whether the extent of cue competition in EC depends upon the type of contingency learning during conditioning. Specifically, we contrasted a learning task that biased participants toward cognitive/inferential learning (i.e., predicting the US) with a learning task that prevented prolonged introspection (i.e., a rapid response made to the US). In all cases, standard EC effects were observed, with the subjective liking of stimuli changed in the direction of the valence of the US. More importantly, when inferential learning was likely, larger EC effects occurred for isolated stimuli than for compounds (indicating overshadowing). No blocking effects on explicit evaluations were observed for either learning task. Contingency judgments and implicit evaluations, however, were sensitive to blocking, indicating that the absence of a blocking effect on explicit evaluations might be due to inferences that occur during testing.

Impulse and Self-Control From a Dual-Systems Perspective

Though human beings embody a unique ability for planned behavior, they also often act impulsively. This insight may be important for the study of self-control situations in which people are torn between their long-term goals to restrain behavior and their immediate impulses that promise hedonic fulfillment. In the present article, we outline a dual-systems perspective of impulse and self-control and suggest a framework for the prediction of self-control outcomes. This framework combines three elements that, considered jointly, may enable a more precise prediction of self-control outcomes than they do when studied in isolation: impulsive precursors of behavior, reflective precursors, and situational or dispositional boundary conditions. The theoretical and practical utility of such an approach is demonstrated by drawing on recent evidence from several domains of self-control such as eating, drinking, and sexual behavior.

Attribute conditioning: Changing attribute-assessments through mere pairings

We propose Attribute Conditioning (AC) as a form of learning that refers to changes in people's assessment of stimuli's (CSs) attributes due to repeated pairing with stimuli possessing these attributes (USs). We review the available evidence and, based on this review, delineate three open questions and investigate them experimentally: a) the moderating role of CS-US similarity; b) the possibility of blocking; and c) the possibility of extinction. Five experiments conditioned health and athleticism. We measured AC effects on direct and indirect dependent variables (direct ratings and semantic misattribution). Experiment 1 shows that CS-US feature similarity does not moderate AC. Experiments 2 and 3 show that AC effects are insensitive to blocking; and Experiments 4 and 5 show that AC effects are resistant to extinction. These five experiments show that AC depends on CS-US contiguity, but not on CS-US contingency. Thereby, the study establishes AC as a simple learning phenomenon describing how people, stimuli, and concepts acquire specific attributes in people's minds due to mere pairings.

Is evaluative conditioning really resistant to extinction? Evidence for changes in evaluative judgements without changes in evaluative representations

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is defined as the change in the evaluation of a conditioned stimulus (CS) due to its pairing with a positive or negative unconditioned stimulus (US). Although several individual studies suggest that EC is unaffected by unreinforced presentations of the CS without the US, a recent meta-analysis indicates that EC effects are less pronounced for post-extinction measurements than post-acquisition measurements. The disparity in research findings suggests that extinction of EC may depend on yet unidentified conditions. In an attempt to uncover these conditions, three experiments (N = 784) investigated the influence of unreinforced post-acquisition CS presentations on EC effects resulting from simultaneous versus sequential pairings and pairings with single versus multiple USs. For all four types of CS-US pairings, EC effects on self-reported evaluations were reduced by unreinforced CS presentations, but only when the CSs had been rated after the initial presentation of CS-US pairings. EC effects on an evaluative priming measure remained unaffected by unreinforced CS presentations regardless of whether the CSs had been rated after acquisition. The results suggest that reduced EC effects resulting from unreinforced CS presentations are due to judgement-related processes during the verbal expression of CS evaluations rather than genuine changes in the underlying evaluative representations.

Designing for psychological change: individuals' reward and cost valuations in weight management

Background

Knowledge of the psychological constructs that underlie behavior offers valuable design opportunities for persuasive systems. We use the decision theory, which describes how behavior is underpinned by reward-cost valuations, as a framework for investigating such psychological constructs to deliver design objectives for weight management technologies.

Objective

We applied a decision theory–based analysis in the domain of weight management to understand the rewards and costs that surround individuals’ weight management behaviors, with the aim of uncovering design opportunities for weight management technologies.

Methods

We conducted qualitative interviews with 15 participants who were or had been trying to lose weight. Thematic analysis was used to extract themes that covered the rewards and costs surrounding weight management behaviors. We supplemented our qualitative study with a quantitative survey of 100 respondents investigating the extent to which they agreed with statements reflecting themes from the qualitative study.

Results

The primary obstacles to weight management were the rewards associated with unhealthy choices, such as the pleasures of unhealthy foods and unrestricted consumption in social situations, and the significant efforts required to change habits, plan, and exercise. Psychological constructs that supported positive weight management included feeling good after making healthy choices, being good to oneself, experiencing healthy yet still delicious foods, and receiving social support and encouraging messages (although opinions about encouraging messages was mixed).

Conclusions

A rewards-costs driven enquiry revealed a wide range of psychological constructs that contribute to discouraging and supporting weight management. The constructs extracted from our qualitative study were verified by our quantitative survey, in which the majority of respondents also reported similar thoughts and feelings. This understanding of the rewards and costs surrounding weight management offers a range of new opportunities for the design of weight management technologies that enhance the encouraging factors and alleviate the discouraging ones.

The role of awareness in attitude formation through evaluative conditioning

This article provides a review of past and contemporary debates regarding the role of awareness in attitude formation through evaluative conditioning (EC), that is, by repeatedly pairing a stimulus with other stimuli of positive or negative valence. Because EC is considered the most prototypical method to form and change the network of evaluative associations in memory, the role of awareness in this effect is critical to the question of whether attitudes may be formed and changed through dual processes. We analyze the reasons why there has been so much discussion and disagreement regarding the role of awareness, review past and contemporary methodologies and their limitations, discuss the role of mental processes and conditioning procedures, and identify promising directions for future research in this area.

Learned predictiveness influences automatic evaluations in human contingency learning

Experiments used an affective priming procedure to investigate whether evaluative conditioning in humans is subject to bias as a consequence of differences in the learned predictiveness of the cues involved. Experiment 1, using brief prime presentation, demonstrated stronger affective priming for cues that had been predictive of a neutral attribute prior to evaluative conditioning than for those that had been nonpredictive. Experiment 2, using longer prime presentation, found a reversed priming effect for previously predictive cues but not for previously nonpredictive cues. The implication is that the effect observed with brief prime presentation reflects the operation of fast-acting, automatic evaluation mechanisms and hence that evaluative conditioning can be biased by our previous learning about the predictiveness of cues.

Making implicit measures of associations with snack foods more negative through evaluative conditioning

The present study examined whether implicit measures of associations with snack foods and food consumer behaviour could be changed through a picture-picture evaluative conditioning procedure. In the experimental condition (n=41), female participants completed a conditioning procedure in which pictures of snack foods were paired with images of negatively valenced female body shapes, and pictures of fruits were paired with images of positively valenced body shapes. In a control condition (n=44), snack and fruit stimuli were randomly paired with positively and negatively valenced body shapes. Implicit measures of associations with high-fat snack foods were obtained by using a positive and a negative unipolar single category Implicit Association Test (sc-IAT). A virtual supermarket task was used to assess food consumer behaviour. Results indicated that participants in the experimental condition held a less positive association with high-fat foods on the positive sc-IAT and a more negative association with these foods on the negative sc-IAT as compared to control participants. Opposed to our hypothesis, no behavioural differences were found between the groups. These results imply that this form of associative learning can produce shifts in implicit measures of food evaluations, though behavioural effects were absent.

Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach, in meiner Brust

Zusammenfassung. Bereits die antike Philosophie hat sich mit der Frage beschäftigt, warum Menschen zuweilen wider besseres Wissen den kurzfristigen Verlockungen des Augenblicks nachgeben und damit wichtigen langfristigen Zielen zuwider handeln. In der modernen Psychologie wird das Problem der Selbstkontrolle in einer ganzen Reihe von Ansätzen aufgegriffen, darunter kybernetische Modelle, intertemporale Entscheidungsmodelle, Zielintentions-Modelle, Zielkonflikt-Modelle, und Zweisystem-Modelle. Zweisystem-Modelle scheinen sich von den übrigen Ansätzen dadurch abzuheben, dass sie impulsive Prozesse der Verhaltensdetermination explizit thematisieren und in Erklärungsmodelle menschlichen Verhaltens integrieren. Wir berichten jüngere empirische Befunde, die aus einem solchen Ansatz erwachsen sind und diskutieren die Vorteile und Grenzen einer Zweisystem-Modellierung von Selbstkontrollkonflikten aus grundlagen- und anwendungsorientierter Sicht.

Neural, electrodermal and behavioral response patterns in contingency aware and unaware subjects during a picture-picture conditioning paradigm

One way of investigating affective learning is the use of aversive pictures as unconditioned stimuli (UCS) in conditioning paradigms. In the last decades, there has been a heated debate on the influence of contingency awareness on conditioned responses (CRs). Only a few studies found CRs in contingency unaware subjects whereas other studies only reported conditioned reactions in contingency aware participants. However, as a shortcoming, most studies employing picture-picture paradigms only investigated one response level (e.g. changes in subjective ratings). Further, changes in brain activity have so far been neglected in this field of research. The aim of the present study was to investigate different response levels with respect to contingency awareness: brain activity measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), skin conductance responses (SCRs) and valence ratings. A neutral geometric shape (conditioned stimulus, CS+) was followed by aversive pictures, whereas another shape (CS-) preceded neutral pictures. Unaware participants showed CRs in brain activity (e.g. the insula). Generally more activity was observed in the fear network (e.g. the amygdala, the lateral orbitofrontal cortex) in aware participants and in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc). Investigation of SCRs and valence ratings revealed that only aware participants showed conditioned reactions. Our results point toward dissociations between response levels (e.g. brain activity) not affected by contingency awareness and more cognitive response levels (e.g. subjective ratings and SCRs) which are affected by contingency awareness. As a unique finding in human aversive conditioning, we discuss the role of the nucleus accumbens as well as practical implications for affective learning models.