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Evaluative conditioning with fear- and disgust-evoking stimuli: no evidence that they increase learning without explicit memory

ABSTRACT Evaluative conditioning (EC) is a change in the liking of a stimulus (conditioned stimulus or CS) due to its previous pairings with another stimulus (unconditioned stimulus or US). In three experiments, we investigated if conditioning CSs with fear or disgust evoking USs increase EC effects that do not require explicit memory. Experiment 1 used images to manipulate the type of US between participants, Experiment 2 used auditory stimuli to manipulate the type of US within participants, and Experiment 3 used both images and auditory stimuli to manipulate the type of US within participants. All experiments failed to provide evidence that fear/disgust-evoking USs lead to larger EC effects without explicit memory than non-fear/non-disgust-evoking USs. Most results are in line with the assumption that the found EC effects are based on explicit memory. The results contribute to the larger goal in EC research of determining which conditions can lead to EC effects in the absence of explicit memory.