Contiguity and contingency in instrumental conditioning

There have been several attempts to construct molar theories of conditioning on the empirical basis that response-reinforcement contingency is important in determining conditioning. Such theories claim to explain behavior in terms of molar level processes which transcend the molecular level and, therefore, are not reducible to molecular processes or their interaction. These molar theories are critically examined and found to be seriously flawed because they fail to account for the effects of delaying reinforcement (degree of contiguity). Observed molar level relations, such as the matching law, do not require a molar theory, but may be more usefully considered as a product of molecular processes.     

Contiguity and the outcome density bias in action-outcome contingency judgements

In cause-outcome contingency judgement tasks, judgements often reflect the actual contingency but are also influenced by the overall probability of the outcome, P(O). Action-outcome instrumental learning tasks can foster a pattern in which judgements of positive contingencies become less positive as P(O) increases. Variable contiguity between the action and the outcome may produce this bias. Experiment 1 recorded judgements of positive contingencies that were largely uninfluenced by P(O) using an immediate contiguity procedure. Experiment 2 directly compared variable versus constant contiguity. The predicted interaction between contiguity and P(O) was observed for positive contingencies. These results stress the sensitivity of the causal learning mechanism to temporal contiguity.     

Contiguity and contingency in the acquisition and maintenance of an operant

Three experiments compared the effects of nondifferential and differential reinforcement of response location on a circular dimension. Rats were required to operate a vertical joystick to produce food. When food was delivered immediately after responses, but independent of response location, the spatial concentration of responding was low and no progressive changes were observed. Traditional and percentile schedules of differential reinforcement for response location produced highly reliable acquisition of spatially concentrated responding. Once concentrated responding had been established, nondifferential reinforcement was sufficient to maintain it in some subjects. Since only the differential reinforcement schedules established a contingency with respect to response location, it was concluded that this relationship was necessary for acquisition, but that response-reinforcer contiguity may be sufficient for maintenance. This conclusion is consistent with the view that operant conditioning is a contiguity-based process, but that contingencies are required to produce reliable contiguity between reinforcers and particular responses.     

On the timescale of stimulus-based action-effect learning

When performing an action, people pick up associations between their actions and the resulting consequences of that action, a phenomenon that has been termed response (R)-effect (E) learning. In the present study, we investigated incidental R-E learning in a forced-choice-that is, a stimulus (S)-based-acquisition mode. Specifically, the study examined at which timescale R-E learning evolves-that is, how many encounters are actually needed to form stable R-E associations. The learning of R-E associations was assessed in a subsequent test phase via effect-based response priming. Experiment 1 tested 4 different numbers of S-R-E repetitions for a 2-2-2 S-R-E mapping. Experiment 2 disentangled the contributions of S-E and R-E associations to the facilitating impact of effect-based response priming by means of a 4-2-4 S-R-E mapping. Experiment 3 investigated whether R-E associations can be picked up even when a given E cannot be unequivocally predicted based on the antecedent S in case of inconsistent S-R-E couplings. Together, the results of the present study clearly show that R-E learning occurs in a stimulus-based action mode and that it evolves very rapidly after only 12 S-R-E repetitions. Moreover, the present findings suggest that at least in this initial phase of learning, complete S-R-E consistency seems to be relevant for R-E learning.     

Category learning in the color-word contingency learning paradigm

In the typical color-word contingency learning paradigm, participants respond to the print color of words where each word is presented most often in one color. Learning is indicated by faster and more accurate responses when a word is presented in its usual color, relative to another color. To eliminate the possibility that this effect is driven exclusively by the familiarity of item-specific word-color pairings, we examine whether contingency learning effects can be observed also when colors are related to categories of words rather than to individual words. To this end, the reported experiments used three categories of words (animals, verbs, and professions) that were each predictive of one color. Importantly, each individual word was presented only once, thus eliminating individual color-word contingencies. Nevertheless, for the first time, a category-based contingency effect was observed, with faster and more accurate responses when a category item was presented in the color in which most of the other items of that category were presented. This finding helps to constrain episodic learning models and sets the stage for new research on category-based contingency learning.     

Generalization decrement in human contingency learning

An association between a cue and an outcome will generalize to a similar novel cue to some extent, but not completely. Learning theorists refer to the discrepancy between responding elicited by the original cue and the novel cue as a generalization decrement. Two experiments used a contingency learning task with human participants to compare the size of a generalization decrement between configurations of cues that were altered by adding or subtracting compositional elements. The results suggest that adding elements to a configuration can produce a generalization decrement, but removing elements produces a more robust generalization decrement. Furthermore, the generalization decrement caused by adding elements was not likely to be caused by competing orienting responses. The results are used to contrast Pearce's (1987, 1994) and Wagner's (2003) models of stimulus generalization.     

Abstraction of contingency in concept learning

It is generally agreed that concept learning involves the abstraction of some general representation or schema. Just what is abstracted, however, and how it is used in the classification of sets of stimuli in the natural world or in the laboratory, remain outstanding questions. In this paper a hypothesis involving contingency abstraction is described as a possible solution to these questions. An experiment which manipulated measured contingency in a concept-learning task, and which offered empirical support for the hypothesis, is reported. The advantages of a contingency-abstraction theory of concept learning are briefly discussed.     

Generalization decrement in human contingency learning

An association between a cue and an outcome will generalize to a similar novel cue to some extent, but not completely. Learning theorists refer to the discrepancy between responding elicited by the original cue and the novel cue as a generalization decrement. Two experiments used a contingency learning task with human participants to compare the size of a generalization decrement between configurations of cues that were altered by adding or subtracting compositional elements. The results suggest that adding elements to a configuration can produce a generalization decrement, but removing elements produces a more robust generalization decrement. Furthermore, the generalization decrement caused by adding elements was not likely to be caused by competing orienting responses. The results are used to contrast Pearce's (1987, 1994) and Wagner's (2003) models of stimulus generalization.     

Overt attention and predictiveness in human contingency learning

Two experiments used eye-tracking procedures to investigate the relationship between attention and associative learning in human participants. These experiments found greater overt attention to cues experienced as predictive of the outcomes with which they were paired, than to cues experienced as nonpredictive. Moreover, this attentional bias persisted into a second training phase when all cues were equally predictive of the outcomes with which they were paired, and it was accompanied by a related bias in the rate of learning about these cues. These findings are consistent with the attentional model of associative learning proposed by Mackintosh (1975), but not with that proposed by Pearce and Hall (1980).     

The response-stimulus contingency and reinforcement learning as a context for considering two non-behavior-analytic views of contingency learning

This paper introduces a special section on the contingency. Bower and Watson were invited to present their views of contingency learning in human infants from outside the context of behavior analysis, and Cigales, Marr, and Lattal and Shahan provided commentaries that point out some of the more interesting and controversial aspects of those views from a behavior-analytic perspective. The debate turns on how to conceptualize the response-stimulus contingency of operant learning. The present paper introduces the contingency concept and contingency detection by subjects, as well as research practices in behavior analysis, in a context in which the dependency between infant responding and the presentation of environmental consequences may be disrupted through procedures in which ordinarily consequent events occur before the response or in its absence. These points can relate to and serve as an introduction to the Bower and Watson papers on infant contingency learning as well as to the three commentaries that follow.     

Augmentation in contingency learning under time pressure

Recent research suggests that cue competition effects in human contingency learning, such as blocking, are due to higher‐order cognitive processes. Moreover, some experimental reports suggest that the effect opposite to blocking, augmentation, could occur in experimental preparations that preclude the intervention of reasoning mechanisms. In the present research, we tested this hypothesis by investigating cue interaction effects in an experimental task in which participants had to enter their responses under time pressure. The results show that under these conditions, augmentation, instead of blocking, is observed.     

Aging and the detection of contingency in causal learning

Young and older participants' ability to detect negative, random, and positive response-outcome contingencies was evaluated using both contingency estimation and response rate adaptation tasks. Age differences in contingency estimation were consistently greater for negative than positive contingencies, and these differences, though still present, were smaller when response rate adaptation was used as the measure of contingency learning. Detecting causal contingency apparently becomes more difficult with age, especially when an oven numerical estimate of contingency must be provided and when the relationship between a causal event and an outcome is negative. A model that incorporates features of both associative and rule-based approaches to contingency learning (e.g., P. C. Price & J. F. Yates, 1995; D. R. Shanks, 1995) provides the best explanation for this pattern of findings.     

Contingency proportion systematically influences contingency learning

In the color-word contingency learning paradigm, each word appears more often in one color (high contingency) than in the other colors (low contingency). Shortly after beginning the task, color identification responses become faster on the high-contingency trials than on the low-contingency trials—the contingency learning effect. Across five groups, we varied the high-contingency proportion in 10% steps, from 80% to 40%. The size of the contingency learning effect was positively related to high-contingency proportion, with the effect disappearing when high contingency was reduced to 40%. At the two highest contingency proportions, the magnitude of the effect increased over trials, the pattern suggesting that there was an increasing cost for the low-contingency trials rather than an increasing benefit for the high-contingency trials. Overall, the results fit a modified version of Schmidt’s (2013, Acta Psychologica, 142, 119–126) parallel episodic processing account in which prior trial instances are routinely retrieved from memory and influence current trial performance.     

Two mechanisms of human contingency learning

How do humans learn contingencies between events? Both pathway-strengthening and inference-based process models have been proposed to explain contingency learning. We propose that each of these processes is used in different conditions. Participants viewed displays that contained single or paired objects and learned which displays were usually followed by the appearance of a dot. Some participants predicted whether the dot would appear before seeing the outcome, whereas other participants were required to respond quickly if the dot appeared shortly after the display. In the prediction task, instructions guiding participants to infer which objects caused the dot to appear were necessary in order for contingencies associated with one object to influence participants' predictions about the object with which it had been paired. In the response task, contingencies associated with one object affected responses to its pair mate irrespective of whether or not participants were given causal instructions. Our results challenge single-mechanism accounts of contingency learning and suggest that the mechanisms underlying performance in the two tasks are distinct.     

Inferences about unobserved causes in human contingency learning

Estimates of the causal efficacy of an event need to take into account the possible presence and influence of other unobserved causes that might have contributed to the occurrence of the effect. Current theoretical approaches deal differently with this problem. Associative theories assume that at least one unobserved cause is always present. In contrast, causal Bayes net theories (including Power PC theory) hypothesize that unobserved causes may be present or absent. These theories generally assume independence of different causes of the same event, which greatly simplifies modelling learning and inference. In two experiments participants were requested to learn about the causal relation between a single cause and an effect by observing their co-occurrence (Experiment 1) or by actively intervening in the cause (Experiment 2). Participants' assumptions about the presence of an unobserved cause were assessed either after each learning trial or at the end of the learning phase. The results show an interesting dissociation. Whereas there was a tendency to assume interdependence of the causes in the online judgements during learning, the final judgements tended to be more in the direction of an independence assumption. Possible explanations and implications of these findings are discussed.     

Generalization gradients for acquisition and extinction in human contingency learning

Two experiments investigated the perceptual generalization of acquisition and extinction in human contingency learning. In Experiment 1, the degree of perceptual similarity between the acquisition stimulus and the generalization stimulus was manipulated over five groups. This successfully generated a generalization gradient of acquisition. In the subsequent phase, the response to the generalization stimulus was extinguished in each group. Finally, the acquisition stimulus was presented again. The response recovered differently over groups, thereby establishing the generalization gradient of extinction. In Experiment 2, the acquisition stimulus itself was extinguished before the set of generalization stimuli was tested between groups. One group evidenced a response recovery at test, which suggests that the gradient of acquisition is somewhat broader than the gradient of extinction.     

Associationism and cognition: human contingency learning at 25

A major topic within human learning, the field of contingency judgement, began to emerge about 25 years ago following publication of an article on depressive realism by Alloy and Abramson (1979). Subsequently, associationism has been the dominant theoretical framework for understanding contingency learning but this has been challenged in recent years by an alternative cognitive or inferential approach. This article outlines the key conceptual differences between these approaches and summarizes some of the main methods that have been employed to distinguish between them.