Underlying Sources of Genuine Response-Response Contingency Learning

09:00 - 10:30

Binding and Learning: Same Same, But Different?

Room: HSZ - N5

Chair/s:

Carina G. Giesen

A growing body of literature documents that perception and action are supported by short-lived bindings between stimulus and response features. Notably, the relationship of binding and retrieval processes and learning mechanisms is complex and a point of ongoing debate in current cognitive research. While the concepts of binding and retrieval as proposed in action control research, e.g., by the Binding and Retrieval in Action Control (BRAC) framework, closely resemble processes in learning and memory on a theoretical level, empirical findings largely oppose a close relation. In this symposium, we explore recent views on the relations between binding and retrieval and learning processes across different types of learning effects.
We will present findings from a broad range of experimental paradigms like stimulus-response and response-response binding, contingency learning, and evaluative conditioning.
These data will be used to highlight different perspectives on the intersections of binding and learning effects. Five talks will unravel how potent factors like contingency awareness, number and frequency of presentations, and time since the last stimulus occurrence affect binding/retrieval and/or learning effects. Together, these findings further our understanding of the relation between binding and learning.

Submission 333

Underlying Sources of Genuine Response-Response Contingency Learning

SymposiumTalk-02

Presented by: Anna Martini

Klaus Rothermund ¹, Anna Martini ¹, Philipp Sprengholz ², Birte Moeller ³

¹ University of Jena, Germany

² University of Bamberg, Germany

³ Trier University, Germany

Research on habit formation is focused on demonstrating that implicit learning of regularities contributes to automatized behavior. Contingency learning paradigms provide an ideal test-bed to investigate this hypothesis. Recent studies on stimulus-response contingency learning (SR-CL) have shown that a large part of the SR-CL effect is explained by retrieval of a single most recent episode and thus should not be considered learning proper. Furthermore, the small residual SR-CL effect can be explained entirely by contingency awareness, suggesting that SR-CL reflects the functioning of propositional knowledge rather than the formation of associations. In the present study, we investigated response-response contingency learning (RR-CL), which is a more promising candidate for capturing implicit learning of action sequences. In a pre-registered study (n = 40), we obtained robust RR-CL effects, even after controlling for episodic retrieval of the most recent RR sequence. This residual RR-CL effect partially depended on contingency awareness; however, a residual RR-CL effect was also obtained in the absence of contingency awareness. These results suggest that the principles underlying learning of action sequences differ from those that characterize the learning of SR contingencies. The findings suggest that a large part of response sequence learning occurs automatically and outside of awareness, possible reflecting the formation of RR associations.

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