A memory-based judgment account of expectancy-liking dissociations in evaluative conditioning ============================================================================================= Frederik Aust\*, Julia M. Haaf^, & Christoph Stahl\* \* University of Cologne, Germany; ^ University of Missouri, MO ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Evaluative conditioning (EC) is a change in liking of neutral conditioned stimuli (CS) following pairings with positive or negative stimuli (unconditioned stimulus, US). A dissociation has been reported between US expectancy and CS evaluation in extinction learning: When CSs are presented alone subsequent to CS-US pairings, participants cease to expect USs but continue to exhibit EC effects. This dissociation is typically interpreted as demonstration that EC is resistant to extinction, and consequently, that EC is driven by a distinct learning process. We tested whether expectancy-liking dissociations are instead caused by different judgment strategies afforded by the dependent measures: CS evaluations are by default integrative judgments---summaries of large portions of the learning history---whereas US expectancy reflects momentary judgments that focus on recent events. In a counterconditioning and two extinction experiments, we eliminated the expectancy-liking dissociation by inducing nondefault momentary evaluative judgments, and demonstrated a reversed dissociation when we additionally induced nondefault integrative expectancy judgments. Our findings corroborated a-priori predictions derived from the formal memory model MINERVA 2. Hence, dissociations between US expectancy and CS evaluation are consistent with a single-process learning model; they reflect different summaries of the learning history. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This repository research products associated with the publication. We provide the experimental software, stimulus material that we are permitted to share in the `Experimental software` directories in each experiment directory. To illustrate the experimental procedure, we additionally provide videos of two experiments in the respective directories (due to licensing requirements parts of the stimulus material were pixelized for the recording). The R Markdown files in the `paper/intentional_learning/` directory contain details about the analyses reported in the paper were conducted, as well as instructions on how to rerun the analysis to reproduce the results. With the help of the R package `rmarkdown` the files can be rendered into the accepted version of the manuscript in `PDF`-format. To do so render the file `osm_minecraft5.Rmd` and subsequently `master.Rmd`. Note that knitting each document may take several hours. The `.../analysis/data/` directories in each experiment directory contain all the raw data; merged and processed data files can also be found here, e.g. `experiments/minecraft1/analysis/data/data1.Rdata`. The published version of the article can be found on [PsyArXiv](https://psyarxiv.com/tkx7b/). Publication (recommended citation) ---------------------------------- Aust, F., Haaf, J. M., & Stahl, C. (in press). A memory-based judgment account of expectancy-liking dissociations in evaluative conditioning. *Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition*. doi: [10.1037/xlm0000600](http://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000600) Dataset description ------------------- Data were collected collected at the lab of the Research Methods and Experimental Psychology group, Department Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany. | Study | Data collection period | |-----------------|-------------------------| | minecraft1 | 2015-06-17 - 2015-06-22 | | minecraft2\_rep | 2016-01-25 - 2016-02-02 | | minecraft5 | 2016-04-28 - 2016-07-13 | See `experiments/lab_protocols.xlsx` for details. Descriptions of the data collection methods are provided in the preregistration documents in the `.../Preregistration/` directories `.../minecraft2_rep/` and `.../minecraft5/` as well as the research report. The `.../analysis/data/` directories in each experiment directory contain all the raw data; merged and processed data files can also be found here, e.g. `experiments/minecraft1/analysis/data/data1.Rdata`. Details about the data processing steps are available in the R Markdown files in `paper/intentional_learning/`. Software requirements --------------------- ### Experimental software The experiments were programmed using [OpenSesame](http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/) and started using the respective Python or Batch scripts. Trial lists were generated in R (see e.g. `.../Trial lists/generate_lists5.Rmd`). We are not authorized to redistribute the stimulus material. If you are interested in the material used for this study please contact the first author (see below). ### Analyses Analyses were originally run on Ubuntu 16.04 using R 3.4.3. To install the R-package `papaja`, which is required to reproduce the research report, please review the [installation instructions](https://crsh.github.io/papaja_man/introduction.html#installing-papaja). Moreover, we used an adapted version of the R-package `BayesFactor` to ensure that Bayes factor estimation errors were sufficiently small. This version of the package is installed automatically when `master.Rmd` or `osm_minecraft5.Rmd` are rendered and is available at [GitHub](https://github.com/crsh/BayesFactor/tree/83af506ea76b7caa5f8688dfd75c053d39a809a0). Acknowledgements ---------------- The data reported here were previously presented at 59th Conference of Experimental Psychologists, Dresden, Germany, and 5th European Meeting on the Psychology of Attitudes, Cologne, Germany. FA, JH, and CS planned research; FA analyzed the data and performed the simulations; FA, JH, and CS wrote the manuscript. We thank Hannah Frings, Julia Krasko, Katharina Mattonet, Philipp Musfeld, Marius Schmitz, and Lisa Spitzer for their help with data collection. Licensing information --------------------- | Material | License | |-----------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Manuscript | © 2018 American Psychological Association | | Data | [CC-0](http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) attribution requested in reuse | | Analysis code | [MIT](http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT) 2018 Frederik Aust | | Experimental software | [MIT](http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT) 2018 Frederik Aust | Contact ------- Frederik Aust Research Methods and Experimental Psychology Department Psychology University of Cologne Herbert-Lewin-Str. 2, 50931 Cologne, Germany E-mail: <frederik.aust@uni-koeln.de>