Cognitive Factors in Transfer of Meaning

Abstract

In a classical conditioning paradigm, CS syllables were paired with UCS words of positive, negative, or neutral evaluative meaning. An intensive questionnaire followed 8 conditioning trials. Predicted transfer of meaning occurred for aware Ss only. Further, there was a tendency to rate CS syllables in terms of their recalled relationship to UCS words. Most Ss apparently regarded the experiment as a problem-solving task in which they rated syllables as they thought they were expected to.