Investigating the effects of subliminal conditioning on appetitive motivation

• Grant number: 19/01406-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: May 01, 2019
• End date: February 28, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Experimental Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Júlio César Coelho de Rose
• Grantee: Denise Aparecida Passarelli
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 14/50909-8 - INCT 2014: Behavior, Cognition and Teaching (INCT-ECCE): relational learning and symbolic functioning, AP.TEM

Abstract

The pairing of a conditioned stimulus (CS) with a stimulus that has positive or negative valence (US), can make the valence of the first equivalent to the latter. However, the CS-US relationship is not always effective, since self-instruction counteractive about CS can occasionally cancel the valence of US, impeding the success of the conditioning. One way to circumvent these self-instructions is to present the CS subliminally, i.e, with a duration of presentation so brief that that the participant is not able to verbally report the stimulus. The present study aims to investigate the efficacy of subliminal conditioning in transferring emotional properties to one set of conditioned stimuli and to investigate the effects on responses related to food behavior (saliva volume and appetitive motivation). Forty undergraduate students, divided into two groups, will be exposed to a computerized program, where a set of stimuli containing four words related to eating behavior (CS) will be presented with a duration of 17 ms and will be paired with terms of neutral valence (trial blocks A) or positive valence (trial blocks B). The presentation order of the US will be counterbalanced: Group 1 will be presented with the training in order AB and Group 2 will have training in the order BA. Before the conditioning task, and at the end of each block of trials, the volume of saliva and the motivation of the participant to perform some activities (e.g., eating, sleeping, running, walking) will be recorded. In this experiment, it is hypothesized that the saliva volume and the appetitive motivation of the participants will be higher in the condition in which CS is paired with terms of positive emotional valence as compared to the neutral-pairing condition. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

AMD, MICAH; PASSARELLI, DENISE APARECIDA. Dissociating preferences from evaluations following subliminal conditioning. ACTA PSYCHOLOGICA, v. 204, MAR 2020. (15/24159-4, 19/01406-7)

HARTE, COLIN; BARNES-HOLMES, DERMOT; MOREIRA, MURILO; DE ALMEIDA, JOAO H.; PASSARELLI, DENISE; DE ROSE, JULIO C.. Exploring a Training IRAP as a single participant context for analyzing reversed derived relations and persistent rule-following. JOURNAL OF THE EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR, v. 115, n. 2, JAN 2021. (19/01406-7, 14/50909-8)