Lieberman D A, Sunnucks W L, Kirk J D
Department of Psychology, University of Stirling, Scotland, UK.
Q J Exp Psychol B. 1998 Nov;51(4):301-16. doi: 10.1080/713932685.
Although some studies have reported that reinforcement can strengthen people's behaviour without their awareness, most studies that have incorporated adequate procedures for assessing awareness have been unsuccessful. Using rigorous procedures, we report two studies designed to provide more scope for learning without awareness by making the reinforcement contingency as unobtrusive as possible. Subjects were told that the experiment was on ESP, and that they were to say which of two words the experimenter was thinking about. In fact, reinforcement was contingent on the loudness of the subject's voice when responding. Even though subjects reported no awareness of a relationship between trial outcomes and their behaviour, the probability of the reinforced responses increased significantly over trials in both experiments. These results support the view that reinforcement can occur without awareness.
尽管一些研究报告称强化可以在人们没有意识的情况下增强其行为，但大多数纳入了足够评估意识程序的研究都未成功。我们采用严格的程序，报告了两项旨在通过使强化偶然性尽可能不引人注意来为无意识学习提供更多空间的研究。受试者被告知该实验是关于超感知觉的，他们要说出实验者正在想的两个单词中的哪一个。实际上，强化取决于受试者回答时声音的响度。尽管受试者报告没有意识到试验结果与他们行为之间的关系，但在两个实验中，强化反应的概率在试验过程中都显著增加。这些结果支持了强化可以在无意识的情况下发生这一观点。
