SELECTIVE ASSOCIATIONS AND ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING - MULTIPLE MECHANISMS, MULTIPLE MEASURES

Davey presents expectancy bias as an alternative explanation for prepa redness effects in conditioning; this commentary mentions some of the problems in interpreting UCS expectancy designs vis-a-vis conditioning . A further complication is that other CS characteristics also influen ce conditioning: A recent experiment provided support for Rescorla and Wagner's (1972) hypothesis that the amount of conditioning is smaller when the CS and UCS elicit similarly valenced initial affective respo nses (as with a fear-relevant CS and shock UCS). Finally, different ph ysiological systems measure different aspects of the conditioning proc ess, a further consideration in interpreting the results of selective association studies.