Does evaluative learning depend on the statistical relationship between stimuli? On the sensitivity of evaluative cue conditioning to ecological contingencies

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is concerned with the transfer of valence from an unconditioned stimulus (US) to a conditioned stimulus (CS). Only recently the notion of EC was extended from individual CSs to categories of CSs that share certain cues. That research shows that a contingency implemented between a cue dimension and US valence has a direct effect on the evaluation of stimuli carrying values of this cue dimension. This phenomenon was coined “evaluative cue conditioning” (ECC). The present research tests whether ECC is sensitive to the contingency between a cue dimension and US valence. The present work thereby investigates the impact of ecological contingencies that define contingency by reference to all other CS-US pairings in the learning environment. Two experiments demonstrate that ECC effects are sensitive to the strength of the ecological contingency, suggesting that ECC is a relative phenomenon that depends on the valence of the CS-US pairings in the reference set. Moreover, these findings call for more research on the contingency sensitivity of standard EC effects using this revised definition of contingency.The research reported in this paper was supported by the Ministry of Science, Research, and the Arts of the State of Baden-Württemberg and an Emmy Noether grant of the German Research Foundation (HU 1978/4-1), both awarded to the first author