EVALUATIVE LEARNING WITH SUBLIMINALLY PRESENTED STIMULI

Evaluative learning refers to the change in the affective evaluation o f a previously neutral stimulus (NS) that occurs after the stimulus ha s been associated with a second, positive or negative, affective stimu lus (AS). Four experiments are reported in which the AS was presented very briefly. Significant evaluative learning was observed in particip ants who did not notice the presentation of the affective stimuli (ASi ) (Experiment 2) or could not discriminate between the briefly present ed positive and negative ASi when asked to do so (Experiment 3). In tw o other experiments (Experiments 1 and 4), no significant learning eff ect was obtained. A meta-analysis performed on the present and previou sly reported results (De Houwer, Baeyens, & Eelen, 1994) gave evidence for a small, though statistically reliable evaluative learning effect when ASi are presented ''subliminally.'' This finding supports the hy pothesis that evaluative associations can be learned implicitly. (C) 1 997 Academic Press.