When all is considered: Evaluative learning does not require contingency awareness

We argue that the effects of evaluative learning may occur (a) without conscious perception of the affective stimuli, (b) without awareness of the stimulus contingencies, and (c) without any awareness that learning has occurred at all. Whether the three experiments reported in our target article provide conclusive evidence for either or my of these assertions is discussed in the commentaries of De Houwer and Field. We respond, with the argument that when considered alongside other studies carried out over the past few de.. cades, our experiments provide compelling evidence for a theory that posits a dissociation between evaluative learning and contingency awareness. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science.