Two in one conditioning? The role of valence in concept learning

The present two studies investigated whether semantic as well as evaluative stimulus aspects can be conditioned to neutral stimuli. In Study 1, pictures of large and small objects were paired with neutral stimuli (conditioned stimuli (CSs)). The subsequently assessed size and likeability ratings indicated that valence as well as size was transferred to the CSs. CSs paired with pictures showing large objects were judged as larger and more positive compared to CSs paired with pictures of small objects. Interestingly, however, concept conditioning did not depend on valence transfer, whereas the EC effect was driven by concept conditioning. This pattern was replicated in a second study in which the concept of softness was used as the to-be-conditioned concept.