B. Cuthbert, SELECTIVE ASSOCIATIONS AND ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING - MULTIPLE MECHANISMS, MULTIPLE MEASURES, Behavioral and brain sciences, 20(2), 1997, pp. 361
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.