Contingency learning and unlearning in the blink of an eye: A resource dependent process

Schmidt, Joana; Houwer, Jan De; Besner, Derek

doi:10.1016/j.concog.2009.12.016

Cited by 60 publications

(142 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…We then compared high, medium, and low contingency trials. Unsurprisingly, high contingency trials were responded to significantly suggest that contingencies are learned quickly and remain relatively stable throughout the task (Schmidt et al, 2007(Schmidt et al, , 2010Schmidt & De Houwer, 2012b, 2012d. conditions were small (<0.5%) and in the opposite direction to those predicted by the misprediction cost and bidirectional cost accounts.…”

Section: (Figure 3)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unbeknownst to participants, each word is presented most often in one colour (e.g., "find" most often in red, "list" most often in green, etc.). Participants implicitly learn these contingencies very rapidly (Schmidt, De Houwer, & Besner, 2010), as indicated by faster responses to high contingency trials (where the word accurately predicts the response) relative to low contingency trials (where the word does not correctly predict the response).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Contingency Learning Tracks With Stimulus-Response Proportion

Schmidt

Houwer

2016

Experimental Psychology

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We investigate the processes involved in human contingency learning using the colour-word contingency learning paradigm. In this task, participants respond to the print colour of neutral words. Each word is frequently presented in one colour. Results show that participants respond faster and more accurately to words presented in their expected colour. In Experiment 1, we observed better performance for high relative to medium frequency wordcolour pairs, and for medium relative to low frequency pairs. Within the medium frequency condition, it did not matter whether the word was predictive of a currently-unpresented colour, or the colour was predictive of a currently-unpresented word. We conclude that a given word facilitates each potential response proportional to how often they co-occurred. In contrast, there was no evidence for costs associated with violations of high-frequency expectancies. Experiment 2 further introduced a novel word baseline condition, which also provided no evidence for competition between retrieved responses.

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Section: (Figure 3)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contingency Learning Tracks With Stimulus-Response Proportion

Schmidt

Houwer

2016

Experimental Psychology

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“…Furthermore, learning is dependent on having available memory resources (Schmidt & Besner, 2008), but does not seem to require contingency awareness (Schmidt, Crump, Cheesman, & Besner, 2007). Most critically, in addition to being a very simple paradigm to program and use, the resulting contingency effect is extremely reliable (i.e., very small sample sizes are required) and is acquired very quickly (e.g., significant in the first block of 18 trials in Schmidt, De Houwer, & Besner, 2010), making it a highly advantageous approach to study learning.…”

Section: Testing the Generality Of Contingency Learning In A Performamentioning

confidence: 99%

Contingency Learning With Evaluative Stimuli

Schmidt

Houwer

2012

Experimental Psychology

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In two experiments, we tested the generality of the learning effects in the recently-introduced color-word contingency learning paradigm. Participants made speeded evaluative judgments to valenced target words. Each of a set of distracting nonwords was presented most often with either positive or negative target words. We observed that participants responded faster on trials that respected these contingencies than on trials that contradicted the contingencies. The contingencies also produced changes in liking: in a subsequent explicit evaluative rating task, participants rated positively-conditioned nonwords more positively than negatively-conditioned nonwords. Interestingly, contingency effects in the performance task correlated with this explicit rating effect in both experiments. In Experiment 2, all effects reported were independent of subjective and objective contingency awareness (which was completely lacking), even when awareness was measured at the item level. Our results reveal that learning in this type of performance task extends to nonword-valence contingencies and to responses different from those emitted during the performance task. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories about the processes that underlie contingency learning in performance tasks and for research on evaluative conditioning.

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“…In particular, they suggested that participants calculate the expected response based on the identity of the word and use this response prediction to decrease the response threshold of the predicted response. An even simpler explanation is that "contingency learning" is simply a by-product of memory storage and retrieval processes (see Schmidt, De Houwer, & Besner, 2010). Specifically, on each trial participants encode information about what stimuli (word and colour) were presented along with what response was made into an episodic memory.…”

Section: Adaptation In the Item-specific Proportion Congruent Paradigmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although not key for the simulations reported in the current series, this reconsolidation process allows the model to rapidly adapt to changes in contingency (e.g., see Schmidt et al, 2010).…”

Section: Contingency and Conflict Adaptation 32mentioning

confidence: 99%