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Classical Conditioning of Verbal Meaning: The Roles of Awareness, Meaningfulness, and Evaluative Loading

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Abstract

In a classical conditioning paradigm, Ss were presented with a series either of nonsense syllables or national names (CS). Each syllable or name was paired with words having positive, negative, or neutral affective meaning (USC). Ss who were aware of the UCS-CS relationship showed more conditioning of meaning, better recall of the stimuli, and greater responsiveness to stimulus variables. Meaningless CS’s were more effective. It was concluded that no single variable determines the degree of conditioning.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Psychology, University College, Rutgers — The State University, New Brunswick, N. J., 08903, USA

    Natalie C. G. Freeman & Peter Suedfeld

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  1. Natalie C. G. Freeman
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  2. Peter Suedfeld
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Financial support for this research was received from the Rutgers University Research Council.

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Freeman, N.C.G., Suedfeld, P. Classical Conditioning of Verbal Meaning: The Roles of Awareness, Meaningfulness, and Evaluative Loading. Psychol Rec 19, 335–338 (1969). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03393857

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03393857

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