On the role of beliefs in observational flavor conditioning

In previous research (Baeyens, Vansteenwegen et al., 1996) we demonstrated that when observers consume a series of CS+ and CS- flavored drinks while s imultaneously watching a videotaped model who synchronically drinks identic al drinks and facially expresses his evaluation (dislike to CS+, neutral to CS-) of the liquids, the observers acquire a dislike for CS+ flavored rela tive to CS- flavored drinks. The aim of the present experiments was to test some predictions derived from a "direct conditioning" theory of such obser vational flavor learning. Using the same observational flavor conditioning procedure, we investigated (Exp. 1) the effect of manipulating the observer s' belief concerning the relationship between the drinks that they and the model were consuming (same/different/no information). Observational flavor conditioning was obtained when observers were led to believe that they were drinking the same drinks as the model did, and when they were not informed about this relationship, but not when told to be drinking different drinks . At the same time, however, the observers were not able to correctly ident ify the source of the model's expression of dislike: They showed no CS-US c ontingency-awareness. Whereas the former finding suggests the causal involv ement of conscious beliefs and cognitive inference processes in observation al learning, the latter is more in line with the idea that the model's faci al expressions may act like a US' which is automatically associated with th e paired flavor CS+, without any involvement of conscious beliefs or cognit ive inferences. These two crucial findings were replicated in Exp. 2. Also, we obtained evidence in this study that the belief manipulation affected l earning through its influence on the observers' attention for the model's f acial evaluative expressions. These results can be integrated either by a c ognitive theory allowing the beliefs on which the inferences are based to b e of an implicit nature, or by a "direct conditioning" theory that conceive s of the US' as an interpreted event, rather than as a mechanistically and invariantly acting physical entity.