ODORS CAN CHANGE PREFERENCES FOR PEOPLE IN PHOTOGRAPHS - A CROSS-MODAL EVALUATIVE CONDITIONING STUDY WITH OLFACTORY USS AND VISUAL CSS

Evaluative conditioning is a form of Pavlovian conditioning in which t he ''CR'' is a change in preference or liking for the ''CS.'' It is pr obably a major cause of development of likes and dislikes in humans. T his research introduces a new, cross-modal evaluative conditioning pro cedure using odors as USs and photographs of people's faces as CSs. Wh en liked, neutral, and disliked odors that were plausibly connected wi th people were contingently presented with photographs of neutral peop le, subjects shifted their preference ratings for the people in the ph otographs presented subsequently without odors in the direction of the ir preference ratings for the odors. Subjects who developed personalit y sketches of someone ''who looked and smelled this way'' showed simil ar shifts as those who simply studied the odor-picture combinations. R esults also suggest that a plausible connection between odors and peop le may play a role in the success of this conditioning. (C) 1995 Acade mic Press, Inc.