Role of Awareness in Verbal Conditioning

8/3/2019 Role of Awareness in Verbal Conditioning

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The role of awareness in verbalconditioningCharles D. Spielberger, Duke University

The successful utilization of operant-conditionmg proceduresto modify verbal behavior has been demonstrated most con-vincmgly in a number of recent mvestigations (see reviews byKrasner, 1958 , Salzmger, 1959) In verbal-conditiomng studies,the subjects typically are mstructed only to emit verbal behaviorand the experimenter employs mterpersonal stimuh such as "good"or "mmmhmm" to remforce some preselected verbal response class.Increments m this remforced response class for subjects judged tobe unaware of any relationship between their own behavior and theexpenmenter's reinforcement have been mterpreted as providmgevidence that leammg has occurred without awareness Such evi-dence was reported m 29 of 31 verbal-oonditionmg studies reviewedby Krasner (195 8) Although the results obtamed m verbal-con-ditiomng studies are remarkably consistent, the vahdity of theinterpretation that the empincal findings provide evidence of learn-ing without awareness requires further analysis of the concepts ofleanung and awareness as employed m these studies.

The pnncipal objecbve m this paper is to examme the role ofawareness in verbal conditioning. But before proceedmg to thistask. It will be useful first to consider some general factors m theclimate of opimon m which psychologists mterested m verbal con-ditiomng have worked, which may have influenced the mterpreta-tion of evidence that subjects leam without awareness This will re-quire at least bnef reference to the methods by which awarenesshas been mvestigated and the manner m which leammg and aware-ness have been defined We will then be m a better position to


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74 aarls D. SpielbergeTbe investigation of awareness in verbal-conditioning studies

The conceptual framework for much of the research on verbaconditiomng is provided by Skinner's (1957) approach to verbabehavior m which the importance of establishmg functional relabons between observable mdependent vanables and a speaker'verbal responses is emphasized In Skinner's fonnulabons, httlrecourse is made to the awareness of the speaker, l e , his tboughtand ideas, m explaimng verbal behavior Furthermore, as Dulany(1959) has noted, although Skinner recognizes the possible importance of pnvate stnnuh to which the speaker alone is able torespond, these are not given systemabc scientific status as vanablecontroUmg verbal behavior It seems, therefore, paradoxical foexperimenters workmg withm a Skinnenan framework to be concemed about whether leammg occurs with or without awareness

Smce awareness has not been mcluded as a systemabc construcm the conceptual framework which has generated much of theverbal-condibomng research, it might be expected tbat there wouldbe relatively httle concem about the methods used to mvesbgateawareness m verbal-conditiomng expenments Absence of awareness has been typically mferred on the basis of subjects' responsesto bnef postconditiomng mterviews gjven, frequently, after asenes of interpolated extmcbon tnals ( e g . Buss, Gerjuoy, & Zusman, 1958, Cohen, Kalish, Thurston, & Cohen, 1954, Greenspoon, 1955) When more mtensive mterviewmg procedures bavebeen utilized immediately followmg acqxusibon tnals (KrasnerWeiss, &Ulhnan, 1959, Kneckhaus& Enksen, 1960, Levm, 1961)more subjects are judged to be aware of a correct contmgencybetween theu: own behavior and the reinforcmg stimuh or ofresponse-reinforcement contmgencies (correlated hypotheses)which bnng parbal reinforcement (Dulany, 19 61, Tatz, 1960)It seems likely that expenments withm the Skinnenan frameworkwhich have contended that verbal condibomng occurs withoutawareness may have been markedly influenced by implicit episte-mological and methodological biases of which the m vesbgators have


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Awareness in verbal conditioning 7 5rate of emission of some remforced response class. Although itIS necessary to mfer "what is leam ed" from subjects' responses(Kendler, 1952), the imphcit assumption that "emission of theremforced response class" is "what is leamed" would preclude con-sideration of the possibihty that learmng can occur m the absenceof immediate effects upon performance In contrast, a cognitiveleammg theory might assume that awareness of a correct con-tingency IS "what IS leam ed" m verbal-conditiomng expenm entsHere Campbell's (1954) argument that different learmng theonesimply different operational defimtions of the leamed response isparticularly cogent.

In order to evaluate the role of awareness m verbal condition-ing, a defimtion of leammg which distmguishes between per-formance and leammg, and which is at least neutral with respectto the acceptance of awareness as a vanable, would seem to berequired. Krmble's defimtion of leammg (1961, pp 2-8) as "arelatively permanent change in behavior potentiality which occursas a result of remforced practice" would seem particularly ap-propnate Accordmg to this defimtion leammg may be inferredfrom behavior which occurs some time after the potential to pro-duce the behavior was acquired, as well as from behavior whichoccurs concomitantly with or immediately followmg remforcedpractice In order to conclude that leam mg has occurred m caseswhere the appearance of what is leamed m behavioral change isnot immediate, it would be necessary for the subject to specifyverbally the behavior that could be performed if he chose to do soTo illustrate with an example from Kimble, suppose that oneexammes a road map and then dnves directly to a distant city Ifwe assume that the act of dnvmg to this city would have beenimpossible without consultmg the map, the successful completion ofthe tnp clearly depends upon previous practice with the mapLeammg m this case could be ascertamed by the actual per-formance of the travel, or by operations which required the subjectto mdicate his awareness of a correct route A more complete


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76 Charles D Spielbergeawareness (verbal reports), or both. We may now tum to thconcept of awareness.The concept of awareness

The import of awareness or immediate expenence for thscience of psychology, histoncally, has raised many epistemological, theorebcal, and methodological issues Some psychologistconsider the mdices or operabonal cntena for awareness as thonly meanmg that can be given legitimately to the term, otherhave used awareness as a construct based upon such mdices buwithout lmphcation of any expenential referent But, as Adam(1957) has noted, in the latter defimbon the clanty gained bymtroducmg awareness as a response-defined mtervenmg vanablm order to avoid phenomenological meamng is more apparenthan real. For this defimbon reduces to the first and thereby limitthe meamng of awareness to the particular mdices employedIn the present context, awareness will be regarded as a proceswhich mtervenes between stimuh and responses whose propertiesmay be delimited by converging operabons Tbe concept ofawareness proposed here is analogous m its defimbonal properUesto the concept of perception suggested by Gamer, Hake, andEnksen (19 56) Althougb the scientific meanmg of awarenessIS considered to reside exclusively m the operations performedwhich converge upon the concept, it seems lmperabve that onealso state his prescientific assumpbons about concepts such as

awareness in order to provide others with a better understandmgof the particular choice of convergmg operabons. Awareness inthe present context will refer m a general way to the conscious expenences (thoughts, ideas, and hypotheses) of the subjects in ouverbal-condibomng expenmentsThe proposed usage of awareness as a concept implies system-atic scienbfic status for processes that are not directly observableby the expenmenter and which have vanously been referred to aimmediate expenence, direct experience, or phenomenal ex-


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Awareness in verbal conditioning 77logical expenments With regard to verbal reports, Enksen (1958,1960) has mdicated mherent hmitabons m too exclusive a de-pendence upon operations which infer awareness from verbalresponses to mterview quesbons Such operabons run the dualnsk of either failmg to detect awareness when the mterview ques-tions are bnef and general or suggestmg awareness when thequesbons are detailed and specific. It will be contended m thispaper that, because of msensibve mterviewmg procedures, failureto detect awareness has contnbuted to the posibve results obtamedm many mvesbgabons of verbal condibomng which have purportedto demonstrate leanung without awareness. And even though itmay not be possible to avoid suggesbng awareness to some sub-jects when detailed postcondibonmg mterviews are used, we willcontend that such mterviews are to be preferred to the superficialmterviews generally employed m mvesbgabons of tbe operantcondibomng of verbal behavior These contenbons will be sup-ported by expenments to which we may now tumExperiments on the operant conditioning of verbal behaviorIn the four experiments to be reported, a sentence-constructiontask devised by Taflfel (1955) was employed as the operant-con-dibonmg procedure The stimulus matenals for the condibomngtask consisted of 3 X 5-mch white mdex cards on each of whicha different past-tense verb was typed. Below the verb the pronouns"I," "we," "you," "he," "she," and "they" were typed m differentsequences In all four expenments the reinforced response classwas first-person pronouns and the reinforcmg stimulus was theexpenmenter's saying "good" The subjects were tested mdi-vidually; they were instmcted to make up a sentence for each cardbeginning with one of the pronouns and contaimng the verb. Eachsentence was defined as a tnal and was recorded verbatun by theexperimenter The first 20 tnals were not remforced so that thesubjects' level of free operant respondmg with "I, we" sentencescould be determmed


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7 8 Charles D Spielbergeralone, with "w e" alone, or with " I" or "we " These contingenciesif acted upon would bn ng 100 per cent reinforcement A furtherrequirement was that the subject mdicate m response to a PCIquestion that he had been aware of the contingency durmg thecondibonmg tnals.Experiment I: Awareness and v erb al conditioning.

In the first expenment Levm (1961) mvesbgated the possi-bihty that previous findmgs which have reported operant condi-bonmg of verbal behavior without awareness might be artifacts ofinsensitive mterviewmg procedures The subjects, male hospital-ized medical and neuropsychiatnc pabents, were randomly assignedto a systemabcally reinforced and a nonremforced group Thesubjects were given 20 nonremforced (free operan t) tna ls fol-lowed by 80 condibomng tnals, they were mterviewed immediatelysubsequent to the final condibomng tnal The first four questionsof the PCI, hereafter referred to as the Bnef Interview (BI), ap-proximated those typically used to determme awareness m otherverbal-condibonmg expenments (e g , Cohen et al, 1954, Taffel,1955) The remaining questions, hereafter referred to as theExtended Interview (EI), were designed to elicit additional ln-fonnabon about subjects' awareness dunng the conditioning trialswhile not suggestmg a correct contmgency to them

Only 3 of 60 remforced subjects were determmed to be awareon the basis of their responses to the BI The data for thesesubjects were excluded from furtber considerabon as is the customm verbal-condibomng mvestigabons. The condibonmg data forthe remaimng subjects who received reinforcement and for thenonremforced controls, grouped into blocks of 20 tnals, aredepicted m Figure 1A Thesefindmgssuggested that when aware-ness was inferred on the basis of responses to the BI, unaware sub-jects leamed ^ But when the EI was employed as the basis formfemng awareness, the evidence for conditiomng without aware-


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Awareness in verbal conditioning

Figure 7 (A) Mean frequerKies of " I , we" sentences for reinforced sub|ectsclassified os unaware on the basis of their responses to a brief mterviewand for nonremforced controls, (Bj Mean frequencies of " I , we" sentencesfor subiects classified as aware on the basis of their responses to the ex-tended mterview, for subiects classified as unaware on the basis of their re-sponses to the extended interview, and for controls

subjects who were unaware of a response-reinforcement con-tmgency 'Althoughfirst-personpronouns were remforced for all subjects,only 6 of the 16 subjects who verbalized awareness durmg the EImdicated that they were aware that sentences beginnmg with both"I" and "we" were remforced Eight subjects stated that thereinforcer followed sentences beginmng with "I" while 2 subjectssaid that it had followed sentences begmnmg with "we " Thedata for the latter 10 subjects were evaluated m order to determmewhether they responded differentially to the remforced pronounfor which they were aware of a contmgency (RP-A) as comparedto the remforced pronoun for which they were unaware of a con-tmgency (RP-U), and to determme whether or not condibomngwithout awareness occurred for the RP-U. It may be noted m

' Al though the unaware subjects did not, as a group, show evidence of con-diUomng, a small subgroup of t hem who were unaware of the "Good" in addiUonto bemg unaware of a correct response-reinforcement contingency showed signif i-cant improvement in performance on the condit ioning task (Levin, 1961) This


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Charles D. Spielberge

/ U - A RQNFORCED PRONOUNS AWARE ( R P - A )

- MATOCD NC3N-RE*WCEDPRONOUN

O O REINFORCED PRONOUNS UNAW ARE ( R P - U )

BLOCKS OF 2 0 TRIA LSFigure 2 M e a n frequen cies for the reinforc ed pronoun for which sub|ectsw er e a w a re o f a response-reinforcement contmgency (RP- A ) , for the rein-forced pronoun for which sub|ects were unaware of a correct contingency( R P - U j , and for a nonreinforced pronoun matched with the RP-U on init ialoperant level .

Figure 2 that the number of sentences beginmng with the RP-Aincreased markedly over trials while the number of sentences be-ginnmg with the RP-U dechned at about the same rate as a non-reinforced pronoun matched with it for free operant levelThefindmgswould seem to contradict the assertion that verbalconditiomng provides a "clear example of direct, automatic, or inother words, unconscious leanung" (Dollard & Miller, 1950, p4 4 ) . The fact that subjects' performance was specific to the pro-nouns of which they were aware of a correct response-remforce-ment contmgency rather than those that were reinforced is con-sistent with the hypothesis that awareness of a correct contmgencymediated performance. If remforcement automatically and un-


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a in ve rb al condit ioning 8 1by the EI undoubtedly mcreased the probabihty that awarenessmay have been suggested durmg the PCI to some subjects who hadnot been aware durmg the conditionmg tna ls But even if thiswere the case, the operabonal defimbon of awareness m terms ofthe EI was more useful than awareness defined on the basis ofresponses to the BI The fact that subjects who verbalized aware-ness acquired the condiboned response while the imaware subjectsas a group did not suggests that m order to account for a largerproporbon of the total vanance m verbal-conditionmg studies, m-tensive interviews should be employed Furtherm ore, verbaliza-tion of awareness would appear to be an important empiricalvanable m verbal condibomng, irrespective of wbether subjects'verbalizabons mdicate awareness dunng the condibomng task orthe effects of suggesbon by cues m the PCI. However, the possi-bibty of the second altemabve comphcates tbe evaluabon of therelabonship between awareness and behavior in this study Thequestion concermng the relationship between awareness and per-formance may be restated as follows Was it the subject's awarenessdurmg the expenment which mediated his performance'' Or, wasawareness suggested durmg the PCI to subjects who sbowed in-crements m performance dunng the condibonmg tna ls'' Evidencebearmg on these altematives will be provided in the followmgexpenmentsExperiment II: Aw areness, attitude tow ar d the reinforcementand verbal conditioning*It has been tacitly assumed m most verbal-condmonmg studiesthat remforcmg stunuh such as "good" and "mmmhmm" are "gen-eralized condiboned reinforcers" (Skinner, 1957, pp. 53-54) whichhave essenbally the same reinforcmg properbes for all subjectsEvidence that this assumpbon may not be tenable has been re-ported by Mandler and Kaplan (1956) who found that the rem-forcmg stimulus "mmmhmm" operated to produce an mcrement mperformance for subjects who subjectively evaluated it as positive,


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82 Charles D Spielbergerwhile the same stimulus produced a decrement m perfonnance forsubjects who regarded it as a negative stimulus The second studym this senes (Spielberger, Levm, & Shepard, 1962) was designedto examme the effects of awareness on verbal conditionmg whenthe subject's attitude toward the remforcement was taken mto ac-count. The stimulus matenals, the procedure, and the PC I m thisexpenment were the same as those employed m Expenm ent I Thesubjects were 45 undergraduate female bberal arts students

The effects of awareness on conditioning. Of the 30 rem-forced subjects, 19 were determmed to be aware of a correct re-sponse-remforcement contmgency. The performance of the 13subjects who were detennmed to be aware on the basis of theirresponses to the BI (Aware-BI) and the 6 subjects who verbalizedtheir awareness to the EI (Aware-EI) are compared with unawareand control subjects m Figure 3A The aware groups demon-sti-ated a greater rate of acquisition of the conditioned-responseclass than did Unaware and Control groups Furthermore, it maybe noted m Figure 3B that, as was the case m Expenment I, when

A

riAare-BI


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Awareness in verbal conditioning 8 3subjects were aware of a response-remforcement contmgency foronly one of the remforced pronouns (RP-A), improvement mperformance was specific to that pronoun. There was no evidenceof learning for the reinforced pronoun (RP-U) of which subjectswere unaware of a response-remforcement contmgency smce theperformance on tbe RP-U was comparable to the emission of anonremforced pronoun (NRP) matched with it for imtial operantlevel Wben the condibomng data for mdividual subjects wereexamined, it was found that not a smgle unaware subject showedan mcrement m the frequency of "I, we" sentences from TnalBlock 1 to T nal Block 5 of more than one such response

The effects of attitude toward reinforcement on conditioningAtbtude toward the reinforcement was determined from subjects'responses to the PCI quesbon "Would you say you wanted me tosay 'Good'?" The question was mitially presented in open-endedform but the subjects were subsequently required to choose fromamong three altematives "very much", "some", "didn't care oneway or the other." Smce none of the unaware subjects showedacquisibon of the condiboned-response class, only aware subjectswere mcluded m the analysis of the effects of atbtude toward thereinforcement on conditioning On the basis of their responses tothe forced-choice form of the question, the 19 aware subjects wereassigned to three groups which were assumed to differ in theirdesire to receive the reinforcement These groups were designatedAware-VM, Aware-S, and Aware-DC and consisted of 4, 6, and 9subjects, respectivelyThe response measure employed for each subject m the analysisof tbe conditiomng data was the specific pronoun or pronouns forwhich the subject was aware of a correct response-remforcementcontmgency Usmg this measure, however, mtroduced greaterindividual differences m subjects' free operant level for the firstblock of tnals In order to control for such variability, differencescores were employed Tbese were denved for each subject by


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84 Charles D. Spielbergerthe Aware-DC groups are compared in Figure 4 with mean dif-ference scores computed for the Unaware and Control groupsThose subjects who stated that they wanted very much to receivethe remforcement showed a significantly greater rate of acquisitionof the pronoun or pronouns for which they were aware of a correctcontingency than did subjects with less positive attitudes towardthe remforcement. Although the difference between the Aware-Sand Aware-DC groups was not statistically significant, both sigmfi-candy exceeded the Unaware and Control groups in the acquisitionof remforced responses


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Awareness in verbal conditioning 8 5Before proceedmg to the next expenment, the principal findingsof Experiment II may be summarized bnefiy (a ) subjects awareof a correct response-reinforcement contmgency showed sigmficantacquisition of the conditioned-response class, (b) subjects unaware

of a correct response-reinforcement contmgency showed no incre-ments m conditiomng performance, (c) the performance on theconditionmg task of aware subjects was specific to the pronoun orpronouns for which they were aware of a correct contingency,(d) the performance of aware subjects was also related to thesubjects' attitude toward the reinforcement The possibihty, how-ever, that awareness was suggested by the interview could not beruled out, especially for the 6 subjects in this study who verbalizedtheir awareness during the E I.Experiment III: The efTects of instructions on awareness andperformance in verbal conditioning

Our third verbal-conditiomng study had four major objectives(a) to evaluate the effects of instructions on awareness and attitudetoward the remforcement, (b) to determme the effects of lnstruc-Uons and awareness on conditiomng, (c) to examme the condi-tiomng data of aware subjects to determme if the mcrements mtheir performance on the conditiomng task coincided with the tnalblock on which they stated that they became aware; and (d) toevaluate the possibihty that a correct response-reinforcement con-tingency might be suggested to subjects dunng the PCI Thisexpenment differed from Experiments I and II m that 100 rem-forced tnals were employed rather than 80, instructions were ma-mpulated, and there were two experimenters. One expenmenterran the conditionmg tnals and a second expenmenter conductedthe PC I. The subjects were 48 female student nursesThe PCI was modified' on the basis of our expenence with itin the two previous expenments The modification of the PCIconsisted of eliminating questions m the EI which had not con-tnbuted to the determmation of subjects' awareness m Expen-


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8 6 Charles D SpieibergerEI The questions for determinmg awareness m the modified PCIare presented m Table 1

The effects of instructions on awareness and attitude towareinforcement Neutral and leammg mstructions were employedThe neutral mstructions were essentially the same as those used mExpenment I The subjects given leammg mstmctions were toldthat a certam techmque for constmctmg sentences would be considered correct It has been demonstrated that a set to look for aprmciple facilitated both awareness and leammg on a task mvolvingverbal remforcement (DiVesta & Blake, 1959)

Instmctions had the expected effects on awareness Of the 20subjects given leammg mstructions, 15 were aware, all of thesesubjects verbalized awareness of the response-reinforcement con-tmgency to the BI Of the 20 subjects given neutral mstructions,13 were aware, 9 of them verbalized awareness to the BI and 4to the EI When the effects of mstmctions on attitude toward theTable 1 Postconditioning interview for awareness

1 Did you usually give the lntsentence that came to your mind?2 How did you go about deciding which of the words to usef3 Did you think you were using some words more often than others? Which words? Why?4 What did you thmk the purpose of this was?5 While going through the cards did you think that you were supposed to make up your

sentences In any particular way, or that you were supposed to change the way In whichyou made up your sentences? How?

6 Did you notice anything about the experimenter while you were going through the cards?7 Did you nohce that she said anything?8 Actually she did occasionally say "good " Thinking back now to when you were going

through the cards, do you remember her soying "good"?9 (Thmking back now to when you were going through the cords) What d id her saying

"good" mean to you?10 Did you try to figure out what made her say "good" or why or when she was saying

11 What ideas did you have about v


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Awareness tn verbal conditioning 8 7reinforcement were examined, it was found that 85 per cent of thesubjects given leammg mstnictions wanted "very much" or "some"to receive the reinforcement as compared to 70 per cent of thesubjects given neutral instructions Stated differently, of the 9subjects who mdicated they "didn't care" about the reinforcement,6 had received neutral instructions

The effects of instructions and awareness on conditioningSmce It was demonstrated m Expenments I and II that subjectswho were aware of a correct response-reinforcement contmgencyfor only one of the remforced pronouns showed conditiomng spe-cific to that pronoun, the response measures employed m the anal-ysis of the conditiomng data m Expenment III were the pronoun("I" or "we") or pronouns ("I" and "we") of which each subjectwas aware of a correct contmgency. As m Experiment II , dif-ference scores were computed to reduce mdividual vanabihtyDifference scores were denved by subtractmg the frequency ofsentences in T na l Block 1 begmmng with the pronoun or pronounsof which each subject was aware from the frequency of suchsentences m the subsequent five blocks of conditionmg tnalsThe conditiomng curves of subjects given leammg mstructionswho were aware of a con'ect response-reinforcement contmgency(Aware-L) and subjects given these mstructions who were unawareof a correct contmgency (Unaware-L) are compared m Figure 5Awith the conditiomng curves of subjects given neutral instructionswho were aware (Aware-N) or unaware (Unaware-N) of a correctcontmgency The Aware-L group showed the greatest mcrementin performance on the conditionmg task. It was evident that, byTnal Block 6, most of the subjects m this group were performmgat near-asymptotic levels. On the final tnal block, the meanfrequency of " I, we" sentences for the Aware-L group was 19 1Examination of the conditiomng data for mdividual subjects m theAware-L group revealed that 12 of the 15 subjects began all oftheir sentences m Tnal Block 6 with the pronoun or pronouns for


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Oiar le s D Spie lberger

CONTROL (N'8)\, \ \, k

UNAWARE-CH(N-3)

i fp', UNAWARE (N-4)i: ''/ AW ARE -EI(N-4)

CONTROL (N-8)

BLOCKS OF TWENTY TRIALSALL CONDITIONS NEUTRAL CONDITION

Figure 5 (A) M e a n difference scores for " I , w e " sentences for sub|ectsgiven learning instructions virho w ere a w a re (A w a re -U or una wa re (Un -aware-LJ of a response-remforcement contingency, and for sub|ects givenneutral instructions who were aware (Aware-Nj or unaware (Unaware-N)of a correct contingency compared to mean difference scores for theControl group, (B ) Mean difFerence scores for sub|ects given neutralinstructions wh o ve rb al iz ed their awa renes s to the brief interview (A w a re -BU, and to the exte nd ed interview (Aw ar e-E l ) , for sub|ects ^ , althoughunaware of a correct contingency, had correlated hypotheses (Unaware-C H j , for subiects who w er e un aw are a nd ha d no co rrelate d hypotheses(Unaware), and for the Control group.

Unaware-N groups showed much greater vanabihty than the com-parable groups given leammg instrucbons. Tberefore, a moredetailed analysis of the condibonmg data for tbese groups was un-dertaken to determme if some of the vanance could be accountedfor by factors related to subjects' awareness. First, the mterviewresponses of the 7 subjects m the Unaware-N group were evaluatedby two raters who had no knowledge of the conditiomng data


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Aworenss in verbal conditioning 8 9school experiences. It may be noted m Figure 5B that unawaresubjects with correlated hypotheses (Unaware-CH) showed someimprovement m performance on the condiboning task while thecondibomng curve of totally unaware subjects (Unaware) wasmore similar to that of the controls.The Aware-N group was also divided mto two subgroups on thebasis of whether these subjects verbalized their awareness to tbe BIor to the EI, the groups were designated Aware-BI and Aware-EI,respecbvely It may be noted m Figure 5B that the Aware-BIgroup performed at about the same level as aware subjects givenleammg mstrucbons (see Figure 5A ) The Aware-EI group didnot show any perfonnance mcrement. The possibihty that aware-ness was suggested to subjects m the Aware-EI group will be con-sidered m a later secbonThe relabonship between atbtude toward the reinforcementand condibomng was essenbally the same as that found m Ex-periment II (see Figure 4) Those subjects who wanted the rem-forcement "very much" demonstrated the highest degree of acqmsi-bon of the reinforced responses Of the 13 aware subjects whowanted the reinforcement "very much," 12 began all of theirsentences m the final tnal block with the pronoun or pronouns forwhich they were aware of a correct contmgency. Of the 13 awaresubjects who wanted the reinforcement "very much," 9 had re-ceived leannng instrucbons Thus, leammg mstrucbons causedmore subjects to be aware and to want the reinforcement "verymuch," and aware subjects who very much wanted the reinforce-ment showed the highest level of acqmsibon of the remforced

Increments m conditioning performance as a function of thetried block on which subfects stated that they became aware of aresponse-remforcement contmgency. At the end of the PCI, allaware subjects were asked to mdicate on which tnal block durmgthe condibomng tnals they became aware of the response-rem-


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90 ChariM D. SpielbergerThis question provided a converging operation for evaluatmganother aspect of the subjects' awareness and permitted analysis ofconditioning performance as a fimction of the tnal block on whichsubjects stated that they became aware For this analysis, thedata for aware subjects given neutral and learmng mstructionswere combmed The 28 aware subjects were divided mto threegroups the 16 subjects who mdicated that they became awaredurmg Tnal Block 2 were designated the Aware-BI 2 group, the7 subjects who stated that they became aware durmg Tnal Block 3were designated the Aware-BI 3 group, the 5 subjects who mdicatedthat they became aware dunng Tnal Blocks 4 and 5 were desig-nated the Aware-BI 4 group All of the aware subjects indicatedthat they became aware pnor to Tnal Block 6

The response measures for the analysis of the conditionmg datawere the difference scores denved for the analysis of the effects ofmstructions and awareness on conditionmg The mean differencescores for the Aware-BI 2, the Aware-BI 3, the Aware-Bl 4 andthe Control groups are compared m Figure 6 Increments in per-formance on the conditionmg task for the three groups of awaresubjects tended to occur on the particular tnal block dunng whichthese subjects stated m the PCI that they became aware of theresponse-reinforcement contmgency. This findm g is consistentwith the hypothesis that subjects' awareness mediated their per-formance A theory of automatic strengthenmg of response byremforcement would predict a gradual mcrease m perfonnance onthe conditionmg task as a fimction of remforced practice

The possibility that a response-reinforcement contmgency wasuggested in the interview Suggestion m verbal-conditioning ex-penm ents could conceivably operate m at least two ways (a) theexperimenter who ran the subjects on the conditionmg task would,consequently, have knowledge of the subjects' performance, theexperimenter might differentially suggest hypotheses about theexpenment dunng the PCI which corresponded to the subjects'


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Awareness m verbal conditionmg

a ' 2

S 8

5 4

AWARE-BL2(N'I6)AWARE-BL 3 (N'7)

...0--0

AWARE-BL 4 (N'5)

CONTROL (N'B)

2 3 4 5 6BUOCKS OF TWENTY TRIALS

Mean difference scores for " I , we" sentences foraware sub|ects who stated during the postconditioning in-terview that they became aware during the second block oftriaU (Aware-BI 2), the third block of tnals (Aware-BI 3), orduring the fourth or fifth blocks of trials (Aware-BI 4) com-pared to the conditioning performance of the Control group

experimenter to conduct the mterview. This procedure was em-ployed m the present experimentThe confrontation question which was added to the PCI at-tempted to get at the second form of suggestion But, of the 12unaware subjects who were confronted with a correct response-reinforcement contmgency, none was found to be aware on thebasis of her responses to the confrontation question It was pos-


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92 Charles D Spieibergethe experimenter to say "Good." For these three subjects, it woulappear that their verbal reports concemmg their awareness dunnthe conditionmg tnals were unreliable, or their statements aboutheir attitudes toward the reinforcement were unrehable, or bothIn order to explore further the possibihty that awareness is suggested by cues provided by the PCI, the final study to be reportedfocused centrally upon this question.Exper iment IV: Confrontation and the possibi l i ty of suggestinga res p onse -re inforceme nt conting ency in ve r b a l conditioning

The pnmary aim m this study (Church, 1961) was to evaluatthe effects on conditionmg of directly confrontmg subjects with response-remforcement contmgency. The procedure employeutilized neutral mstructions, 80 reinforced tnals, and the modifiedPCI employed m Experiment III which mcluded the confrontationquestion AU subjects who at the end of the EI had not verbalizedawareness were confronted with a correct response-remforcemencontmgency The subjects were 30 female undergraduate studentsOf the 20 subjects who received remforcement, 18 stated thathey had been aware of a response-reinforcement contingencydurmg the conditionmg tnals Smce the purpose of the expenmenwas to evaluate the possibibty that a correct contmgency was suggested dunng the PCI, the two unaware subjects were eliminatedfrom further consideration The 18 subjects who stated that theybecame aware of a response-reinforcement contmgency durmg theconditiomng tnals were divided into three groups on the basis ofthe mterview question to which they verbalized awareness 7 subjects verbalized awareness to the BI (Aware-BI), 5 to the EIexcludmg the confrontation question (Aware-EI), and 6 to theconfrontation quesUon (A ware-C). The performances of thesethree groups are compared with that of the Control group inFigure 7. Difference scores, denved as m Expenment III andbased on the pronoun or pronouns for which individual subjectswere aware of response-reinforcement contmgencies, were the


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Awareness in verbal conditioning

M Aware-BI Group^ y " ^ (N-7)

^ - - ^ ^^Aware-El Group' " - ^ . - - - (N'5)

.., ^ ^ ^ " " ' ' ' ^y * ^Controls(N-IO)

BLOCKS OF TWENTY TRIALSFigure 7 Mean difference scores for "I, w e " sentences for sub|ects whoverbalized aw areness to the brief interview (Aware-BI), to the extendedinterview excluding the confrontation question (Aware-EI), or to theconfrontation question (Awar-C) compared to the Control group

formance ofthe subjects who did not verbahze awareness untilthey were directly confronted with a correct response-remforcementcontmgency was comparable to that of the Control group Theevaluation of the over-aU differences between the four groupsyielded an Fwhich was stabsbcally sigmficant, but the F test of thedifference between the Aware-EI and the Aware-C groups was notsigmficant Given the small iVs, the range of atbtudes toward theremforcement, which contnbuted addibonal vanabihty to theAware-EI group, and the possibihty that awareness was suggestedto some subjects m this group, the failure of this difference to reach


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94 Charles D. Spielbergerthese subjects to show an increment m performance could not beaccounted for by mdifferent attitudes toward the reinforcement mthat 4 of them mdicated "some" desu-e to receive the remforcementAs an mdependent estunate of the awareness of subjects m thisexpenment, the mterviewer, who had no knowledge of the sub-jects' performance on the conditiomng task, assessed the subjectsawareness on the basis of their responses to the PC I. Five subjectswere judged to have had awareness suggested to them dunng thePC I All five subjects had verbalized their awareness to theconfrontation question.The role o f a ware nes s in ve rb a l conditioning

In order to examme imphcations for the role of awareness mverbal conditionmg of the expenments reported m this paper, itwill be useful beforehand to review the aggregate findmgs of thefour studies (o ) It was clearly demonstrated that verbal behaviorcould be modified by remforcmg selected classes of emitted verbalresponses (b) Acquisition of the reinforced response class wasobserved for "unaware" subjects when bnef mterviews were em-ployed as the operations for determmmg awareness, (c ) Therewas no evidence of leammg without awareness, except possiblym Expenment I (see Footnote 3), when extended mterviews wereemployed to infer awareness (d) The acquisition of the remforcedresponses by aware subjects was specific to the pronoun or pro-nouns for which these subjects were aware of a correct response-reinforcement contmgency (e ) Increments m the conditiomngcurves of aware subjects corresponded to the tnal block on whichthey stated durmg the postconditioning mterview that they becameaware (/ ) Subjects who verbalized awareness m response to directconfrontation with a correct contingency m the postconditionmgmterview did not manifest mcrements in performance on the con-ditionmg task, ig ) Leam mg mstmctions mcreased the number ofsubjects who became aware of a response-reinforcement con-


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Awareness in verbal conditioning 9 5What conclusions may be drawn frwn these findmgs about therole of awareness m verbal condibom ng'' Given tbe concepts oflearmng and awareness proposed earher, the data suggest that"what IS leam ed" m verbal-condibonmg expenm ents is awareness

of a response-remforcement contmgency which may be acted uponif the subject desu-es to receive the remforcement This interpreta-tion IS suggested most clearly by thefinding, n all four expenments,that condibomng was specific to the pronoun or pronouns forwhich tbe subjects were aware of a contmgency rather than thepronouns which were reinforced The mterpretabon is supportedby the findmgs m Expenm ents II, H I, and IV that only awaresubjects learned, and that those aware subjects who wanted mostto receive the reinforcement showed the greatest degree of acquisi-tion of the remforced responses Thus, awareness of a response-remforcement contmgency would appear to be a necessary condi-tion for the acquisition (mcrease m the rate of emission) of aremforced response, and the extent to which aware subjects act onwhat they leam would seem to depend upon how much they wantto receive the reinforcementTheoretical interpretations of the findings

The em pincal findmgs of verbal-conditiomng studies have beencited as evidence of the appropnateness of Skinner's descnptivebehaviorism as an approach to the understandmg of verbal be-havior (Salzmger, 1959). We have found, however, that theframework of cogmbve-leammg theory is more useful for gen-eratmg hypotheses and explaimng results m verbal-conditionmg ex-penments. The latter pomt of view suggested specific hypotheseswhich led to the observation in our data of previously unreportedrelabonships between performance on the conditionmg task and(a) awareness of a correct response-remforcement contmgencyfor a smgle remforced pronoun, and (b ) awareness of the parbculartnal block of the conditioning task on which subjects stated, dur-ing the postcondibomng mterview, that they first became aware of


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96 Charies D. Spielbergerterms. Most mvestigators working with verbal conditionmg haveascnbed the effects on performance of their condiuomng proceduresto the reinforcmg stimuh administered by the experimenter Arecent analysis of verbal conditionmg offered by Skinner* hasmvolved the assumption that the "Good" is a discnmmative stunu-lus rather than a reinforcement The successful conditiomng ofsome response classes and the failure to condition others (and pre-sumably the fact that some subjects condition and others do not)IS then explained m terms of the subject's pnor conditionmg historywith respect to audience vanables Although awareness as asystematic construct is thereby avoided, this mterpretation wouldappear to place considerable burden upon the expenmenter forvenfication of the subject's pnor conditionmg history

The findmgs of verbal-condiUonmg studies have been cited asdemonstrating "that the effects of a reinforcement can be entirelyunconscious and autom atic" (D ollard & Miller, 1950, p 44 )Interpretation of thefindmgsof Expenments II , HI , and IV m theseterms would encounter diflSculty m accountmg for the fact thatconditioning was specific to the pronouns for which subjects wereaware of a correct response-reinforcement contmgency rather thanthose pronouns that were remforced, as well as for the more generalfailure of the remforcement to have the expected effects upon theperformance of unaware subjects In addition, a number of as-sumptions about aware subjects who showed improved performanceon the conditionmg task would appear to be required of those whowish to mamtain this view, it would be necessary to assume (a )that awareness was suggested by the cues of the interview to someof the subjects who verbalized awareness, {b) that the subjects towhom awareness was suggested retrospectively recalled their per-formance and accurately descnbed it m their verbal reports, and (c )that these subjects also verbalized attitudes toward the remforce-ment so as to be consistent with their performance on the condi-tionmg task On the basis of data smular m many respects to thatreponed here, Dulany (1961) has recently concluded that "a


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Awareness m verbal conditioning 97Regardless of one's theorebcal onentabon, one imphcabon ofthe experiments presented here seems mescapable Verbalizationof awareness to mtensive mterview questions is an important em-pincal vanable m mvesbgabons of verbal condibonmg regardless

of whether the subjects' verbal reports are mterpreted as mdicatmgawareness durmg the conditionmg tnals or awareness suggested bythe cues of the postcondibomng mterview. The fact that moresystemabc vanance was accounted for when the condibomng datawere analyzed on the basis of responses to mtensive mterviews thanwben bnef mterviews were employed argues strongly for the po-tenbal explanatory gam from usmg mtensive mterviewmg pro-cedures not only m verbal-condibonmg studies but, more generally,m psychological expenments with human subjectsExperimental conditions which influence verbal conditioning

Other factors mdependent of theorebcal onentabon whichwould seem to be important m verbal-condibonmg expenments are(a) the charactensbcs of the subject populabons on whom theexpenments are conducted, (6) the mstrucbons given the subjects,and (c) the nature of the verbal-condibonmg procedure

Characteristics of subjects. Much of the posibve evidencefor verbal conditiomng without awareness comes from studies mwhich psychiatnc pabents were the subjects ( eg . Buss & Gerjuoy,1958, Cohen et al, 1954, Leventhal, 1959, Taffel, 1955) Butsmce pabent populabons are generally compnsed of relabvely lessmtelhgent, less sophisticated subjects with madequate vocabulariesand vague conceptual categones, for these subjects the relabonshipbetween awareness and leammg is likely to be difficult to evaluateEvidence for condibonmg without awareness obtamed m ex-penments m which pabents served as subjects would appear to besuspect imless detailed mterviewmg procedures were employed andthis has rarely been the case Fmdmgs of verbal condibomng with-out awareness for bnght, relabvely sophisbcated college students


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98 Oiarles D. Spielbergerthat many subjects, especially college students, approach psycho-logical expenments with lmphcit problem-solvmg sets which leadthem to develop hypotheses about what they are supposed to doThe mterviews with subjects who parbcipated m Expenments I-IVrevealed that most of those who were not aware of correct or cor-related contmgencies had hypotheses about the expenment andthe reinforcement. Tbe fact that leanung instructions m Expen-ment in produced more aware subjects suggests that when subjectsare given exphcitly a problem-solvmg set, they proceed more di-rectly to test out theu: hypotheses about the experiment Leammginstrucbons also produced more subjects who had positive attitudestoward the remforcement If the subjects given leammg mstmc-bons figured out what the expenmenter wanted them to do, theytended to be more willmg to comply because of their strongerdesire to receive the reinforcement Thus, instrucbons appear toaffect both awareness and performance m verbal-condibomng ex-penments

The nature of the verbal-condmonmg task. Kanfer and McBrearty (1961) have pointed out that difficulbes m stimulus dis-cnmmabon may affect awareness and leanung m verbal-condibon-ing expenments When a conditionmg procedure m which thereIS relatively httle stimulus control, such as Greenspoon's (1955)word-nammg task, is employed m contrast to procedures m whichthere is considerable stimulus control, such as the sentence-con-strucbon task employed m the expenments reported m this paper,fewer subjects are likely tobecome aware. Kanfer and McBreartyhave demonstrated that on conditiomng tasks m which the rem-forced response class is more easily identified more subjects becameaware. Thefindmgsof Matarazzo et d (1960) have called at-tenbon to essenbally the same phenom enon when the response classhumans was remforced as compared to when the response classplurals was remforced.It IS not too surpnsmg that when superficial mterviews are


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Av/areness in verbal conditioning 99correlated hypotheses tend to be judged unaware on the bases oftheir responses to bnef postconditionmg mterviews Dulany's(1961) work with Greenspoon's (1955) word-nammg task clearlyindicated that correlated hjrpotheses were more frequent when aless structured conditionmg procedure was employed With therelatively structured conditioning task employed in the four ex-periments reported here, most subjects were either aware of a cor-rect response-remforcement contmgency or were unaware of sucha contmgency, only three subjects (aU given neutral mstructions)developed correlated hypotheses.

Enksen (1960) has recently pomted out that "attention" ratherthan "awareness" may be the important variable in studies ofleammg without awareness, and that m situations where cues andremforcements are sahent enough to produce leammg they wiU notescape detection by awareness. The experiments reported herewould seem to offer support for Enksen's conclusion To be sure,the findmgs in our studies do not provide evidence that leamingcannot take place without awareness, but merely affirm Adams'(1957) observation that such evidence has not been demonstratedconvmcmgly m the laboratory

SummaryThe general goal of this paper was to examme the role ofawareness m verbal conditioning The concepts of leammg and

awareness as employed m mvestigations of verbal conditionmg wereanalyzed and the results of four verbal-conditioning expenmentswere reported In these studies, a sentence-constmcUon task wasemployed as the conditiomng procedure and "Good" was the rem-forcmg stimulus Awareness was inferred on the basis of sub-jects' responses to a detailed postconditiomng mterview conductedimmediately followmg conditiomng tnals.The results of the four expenments were mterpreted as sup-portmg the hypothesis that "what is leamed" m verbal-condmonmg


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100 Charles D. Spielbergermost useful for generatmg specific hypotheses which led to observa-tions m the data of previously unreported relationships betweenperfonnance on the conditionmg task and different aspects of thesubjects' awareness Expenmental conditions which are likely toinfluence the results of verbal-conditionmg expenments were dis-cussed

ReferencesAdams, J Laboratory studies of behavior without awareness PyychalBull, 1957,54,383-405Buss, A H , & Geriuoy, Irma R Verbal conditioning and anxiety /abnorm soc Psychol, 1958, 57, 249-250Buss, A H , Gerjuoy, Irma R , & Zussman, J Verbal conditioning andexUnction with verbal and nonverbal reinforcers / exp Psychal,1958, 56, 139-145Campbell, D T Operational dehneaUon of "what is leamed" via thetransposition expenment Psychol Rev, 1954, 61, 167-174Church, Jane C The relationship between indices of awareness and per-formance in verbal conditiomng Unpubhshed honors thesis. DukeUmversity, 1961Cohen, B D , Kalish, H I , Thurston, J R , & Cohen, E Experimentalmampulation of verbal behavior / exp Psychol, 1954,47, 106-110DiVesta, F , & Blake, Kathryn The effects of instructional "sets" onleanung and transfer Amer J Psychol, 1959, 72, 57-67Dollard, J , & Miller, N E Personaiity and psychotherapy New YorkMcGraw-Hill, 1950Dulany, D E Review of Verbal behavtor by B F Skinner Science,1959, 129, 143-144Dulany, D E Hypotheses and habits in verbal "operant conditioning"

/ abnorm soc Psychol, 1961,63, 251-263Enksen, C W Unconscious processes In M R Jones ( E d ) , Nebraskasymposium on motivation Lincohi Umver Nebraska Press, 1958Pp 169-227Enksen, C W Discrimination and learmng without awareness PsycholRev , 1960, 67, 279-300Gam er, W R , Hake, H W , & Eriksen, C W Operationism and theconcept of perception Psychol Rev , 1956, 63, 149-159Greenspoon, J The reinforcing effect of two spoken sounds on the fre-quency of two responses Amer J Psychol, 1955, 68, 409-416Kanfer, F H , & McBrearty, J F Verbal conditioning Discnm mation and


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Awareness in v er b al conditioning 1 0 1Krasner, L , Weiss, R L , & Ullman, L P Responsivity to verbal condi-tioning as a function of two different measures of "awareness " AmerPsychologist, 1959, 14, 388Kneckhaus, E E , & Enksen, C W A study of awareness and its effect onleammg and generahzaUon J Pers, 1960, 28, 503-517Leventhal, A M The effects of diagnostic category and remforcer onlearmng without awareness / abnorm soc Psychol, 1959,59, 162-166Levm, S M The effects of awareness on verbal conditiomng / expPsychol, 1961, 61, 67-75Mandler, G , & Kaplan, W K Subjective evaluation and reinforcing effectof a verbal stimulus Science, 1956, 124, 582-583Matarazzo, J D , Saslow, G , & Pareis, E N Verbal conditioning of tworesponse classes Some methodological considerations / abnorm soc

Psychol, 1960, 61, 190-206Salzinger, K Expenmental manipulation of verbal behavior A review/ gen Psychol, 1959, 61, 65-94Skmner, B F Verbal behavior New York Appleton-Century-Crofts,I nc , 1957Spielberger, C D , Levm, S M , & Shepard, Mary The effects of awarenessand attitude toward tbe remforcement on the operant conditioning ofverbal behavior / Pers, 1962, 30, 106-121Taffel, C Anxiety and the conditiomng of verbal behavior / abnormsoc Psychol, 1955, 51, 496-501Tatz, S J Symbohc activity m "learmng without awareness " Amer JPsychol, 1960, 73, 239-247Zener, K The significance of expenence of the individual for the scienceof psychology In Feigl, H , Scnven, M , & Maxwell, G , Minnesotastudies in the philosophy of science, Vol 2 Minneapolis UmverMinn Press, 1958 Pp 254-369


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Role of Awareness in Verbal Conditioning