Nonconscious associative learning: Pavlovian conditioning of skin conductance responses to masked fear-relevant facial stimuli.
We examined the possibility of nonconscious associative learning in a context of skin conductance conditioning, using emotional facial expressions as stimuli. In the first experiment, subjects were conditioned to a backwardly masked angry face that was followed by electric shock, with a masked happy face as the nonreinforced stimulus. In spite of the effectively masked conditioned stimuli, differential conditioned skin conductance responses were observed in a subsequent nonmasked extinction phase. This effect could not be attributed to differential sensitization or pseudo-conditioning. In the second experiment, the differential responding during extinction was replicated with angry but not with happy faces as conditioned stimuli. It was concluded that with fear-relevant facial expressions as the conditioned stimulus, associative learning was possible even in conditions where the subjects remained unaware of the conditioned stimulus and its relationship to the unconditioned stimulus.
Esteves
F
F
Department of Clinical Psychology, Uppsala University, Sweden.
Parra
C
C
Dimberg
U
U
Ohman
A
A
D000328:Adult; D000786:Anger / Q000502:physiology; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005108:Extinction, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D005149:Facial Expression; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*