title: The role of contingency awareness in single-cue human eyeblink conditioning.
abstract: Single-cue delay eyeblink conditioning is presented as a prototypical example of automatic, nonsymbolic learning that is carried out by subcortical circuits. However, it has been difficult to assess the role of cognition in single-cue conditioning because participants become aware of the simple stimulus contingency so quickly. In this experiment (n = 166), we masked the contingency to reduce awareness. We observed a strong relationship between contingency awareness and conditioned responding, with both trace and delay procedures. This finding suggests that explicit associative knowledge and anticipatory behavior are regulated by a coordinated system rather than by functionally and neurally distinct systems.
authors.affiliation: School of Social Sciences and Psychology, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, 2751, Australia. G.Weidemann@uws.edu.au
authors.forename: Gabrielle
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Weidemann
authors.forename: Erin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Best
authors.forename: Jessica C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Peter F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Lovibond
mesh_terms: D001364:Awareness; D003215:Conditioning, Eyelid; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D055815:Young Adult