The role of awareness in Pavlovian conditioning: empirical evidence and theoretical implications.

Full Abstract

This article reviews research over the past decade concerning the relationship between Pavlovian conditioning and conscious awareness. The review covers autonomic conditioning, conditioning with subliminal stimuli, eyeblink conditioning, conditioning in amnesia, evaluative conditioning, and conditioning under anesthesia. The bulk of the evidence is consistent with the position that awareness is necessary but not sufficient for conditioned performance, although studies suggestive of conditioning without awareness are identified as worthy of further investigation. Many studies have used inadequate measures of awareness, and strategies for increasing validity and sensitivity are discussed. It is concluded that conditioning may depend on the operation of a propositional system associated with consciousness rather than a separate, lower level system.

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Author information

Author/s: Lovibond, Peter F (PF); Shanks, David R (DR);

Affiliation: School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052, Australia. p.lovibond@unsw.edu.au

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes (J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Jan; vol 28 (issue 1) : pp 3-26

Dates: Created 2002/02/28; Completed 2002/08/28; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 11868231, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

Comments and Corrections

CommentIn: J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process. 2002 Jan;28(1):27-31. (PMID: 11868230)

CommentIn: J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process. 2002 Jan;28(1):32-7. (PMID: 11868232)

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