I like it, but I'm not sure why: Can evaluative conditioning occur withoutconscious awareness?

There is good evidence that, in general, autonomic conditioning in humans o ccurs only when subjects can verbalize the contingencies of conditioning. H owever, one form of conditioning, evaluative conditioning (EC), seems excep tional in that a growing body of evidence suggests that it can occur withou t conscious contingency awareness. As such, EC offers a unique insight into what role contingency awareness might play in associative learning. Despit e this evidence, there are reasons to doubt that evaluative conditioning ca n occur without conscious awareness. This paper aims to critically review t he EC literature and to draw some parallels to what is known about autonomi c conditioning. In doing so, some important general issues about measuring contingency awareness are raised. These issues are illustrated with a brief report of an experiment in which a sensitive measure of contingency awaren ess is compared against a commonly used measure. (C) 2000 Academic Press.