Learning to like triangles: A longitudinal investigation of evaluative conditioning in infancy

Frances L Doyle; Louis Klein; Lindsay J Kemp; Caroline Moul; Jenny L Richmond; Valsamma Eapen; Paul J Frick; Eva R Kimonis; David J Hawes; Mike E Le Pelley; Divya Mehta; Mark R Dadds

doi:10.1002/dev.22244

Learning to like triangles: A longitudinal investigation of evaluative conditioning in infancy

Dev Psychobiol. 2022 Apr;64(3):e22244. doi: 10.1002/dev.22244.

Authors

Frances L Doyle^{1

2}, Louis Klein^{1

3}, Lindsay J Kemp¹, Caroline Moul¹, Jenny L Richmond⁴, Valsamma Eapen^{3

5}, Paul J Frick⁶, Eva R Kimonis⁴, David J Hawes¹, Mike E Le Pelley⁴, Divya Mehta⁷, Mark R Dadds¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
² MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, School of Psychology, Western Sydney University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
³ Mental Health Academic Unit, Liverpool Hospital, SWS-LHD, Liverpool, New South Wales, Australia.
⁴ School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
⁵ School of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
⁶ Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA.
⁷ School of Psychology and Counselling, Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

PMID: 35312056
DOI: 10.1002/dev.22244

Abstract

There is tentative evidence that infants can learn preferences through evaluative conditioning to socioemotional stimuli. However, the early development of evaluative conditioning and the factors that may explain infants' capacity to learn through evaluative conditioning are not well understood. Infants (N = 319; 50.2% boys) participated in a longitudinal study where an evaluative conditioning paradigm using socioemotional stimuli was conducted on two occasions (when infants were 7 and 14 months old, on average). We tested whether repeatedly pairing neutral stimuli (triangular and square shapes) with affective stimuli (angry and happy faces) affects infants' preferences for these shapes. At both timepoints, the majority of infants did not choose the shape that was paired with happy faces, indicating that, in general, learning through evaluative conditioning was not present. However, as expected, individual differences were evident such that infants who spent more time fixating on faces compared to shapes (face-preferrers) during the conditioning trials were significantly more likely than non-face-preferrers to choose the shape paired with happy faces, and this effect strengthened with increasing age.

Keywords: associative learning; evaluative conditioning; eye-tracking; infant; learning.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Anger
Conditioning, Classical*
Female
Humans
Infant
Learning*
Longitudinal Studies
Male