Blocking is sensitive to causal structure in 4-year-old and 8-year-old children

In a contingency learning task, 4-year-old and 8-year-old children had to predict the outcome displayed on the back of a card on the basis of cues presented on the front. The task was embedded in either a causal or a merely predictive scenario. Within this task, either a forward blocking or a backward blocking procedure was implemented. Blocking occurred in the causal but not in the predictive scenario. Moreover, blocking was affected by the scenario to the same extent in both age groups. The pattern of results was similar for forward and backward blocking. These results suggest that even young children are sensitive to the causal structure of a contingency learning task and that the occurrence of blocking in such a task defies an explanation in terms of associative learning theory.     

Stimulus-feature specific negative priming

We report the results of two experiments that showed that the time needed to respond to a feature of a stimulus increases when that particular feature of that particular stimulus previously had to be ignored. The data of Experiment 2 argue against the hypothesis that the observed stimulus-feature specific negative priming was due to a response conflict instigated by automatic episodic retrieval of prime responses. Experiment 2 also showed that the effects were not caused by difficulties in switching between prime and probe tasks and provided additional evidence for the fact that priming effects were stimulus-feature specific. The present results suggest that the selective inhibition or episodic encoding mechanisms that are assumed to underlie negative priming can operate in a more specific and powerful manner than has been previously assumed.     

On the nature of the affective priming effect: Effects of stimulus onset asynchrony and congruency proportion in naming and evaluative categorization

In line with the hypothesis that affective priming of evaluative categorization responses is based on processes that operate at a response selection stage, it has been observed that increasing the proportion of congruent trials brings about increased affective priming effects at short stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) in the evaluative categorization task. In the present study, we orthogonally manipulated the congruency proportion (.25, .50, and .75) and the SOA (0, 200, and 1,000 msec) in the evaluative categorization task and a naming task. Results showed that at both short and long SOAs, the affective priming effect in the evaluative categorization task was influenced by the congruency proportion. In contrast, affective priming effects in the naming task were unaffected by the congruency proportion at short SOAs. This pattern of results provides corroborating evidence for the hypotheses (1) that different processes underlie the affective priming effect in the evaluative categorization task and the naming task and (2) that valenced stimuli can automatically preactivate the memory representations of other, affectively related stimuli.     

Outcome maximality and additivity training also influence cue competition in causal learning when learning involves many cues and events

Recent evidence shows that outcome maximality (e.g., De Houwer, Beckers, & Glautier, 2002) and additivity training (e.g., Lovibond, Been, Mitchell, Bouton, & Frohard, 2003) have an influence on cue competition in human causal learning. This evidence supports the idea that cue competition is based on controlled reasoning processes rather than on automatic associative processes. Until now, however, all the evidence for controlled reasoning processes comes from studies with rather simple designs that involved only few cues and events. We conducted two experiments with a complex design involving 24 different cues. The results showed that outcome maximality and additivity training had an influence on cue competition but that this influence was more pronounced for forward cue competition than for retrospective cue competition.     

Attentive processing of threat and adult attachment: a dot-probe study

We examined selective attention to threat stimuli as a function of individual differences in adult attachment. Participants completed a dot-probe task in which a general threat word, attachment-related threat word, general positive or attachment-related positive word was presented together with a neutral word. Results showed that attachment anxiety and avoidance were associated with an attentional bias away from attachment threat words. This attentional avoidance effect was best predicted by the interaction between attachment anxiety and avoidance and not by their unique main effects. The findings are discussed in terms of attachment theory and its relation to attentional biases observed in psychopathology.     

Novel attitudes can be faked on the Implicit Association Test

We asked participants to imagine that a researcher would provide them with positive or negative information about fictitious social groups. Half of the participants were asked to act in such a way that they would conform to the expectations of the researcher. The other participants were asked to behave in the manner opposite to what the researcher expected. Participants then completed an IAT designed to measure the newly formed attitudes toward the fictitious social groups. The direction of the IAT effect depended on the faking instructions. The results call for caution when using the IAT to study the development of implicit attitudes.     

The role of memory for compounds in cue competition

Revisions of common associative learning models incorporate a within-compound association mechanism in order to explain retrospective cue competition effects (e.g., [Dickinson, A., & Burke, J. (1996). Within-compound associations mediate the retrospective revaluation of causality judgements. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 49B, pp. 60-80.]). These models predict a correlation between memory for compounds (as a measure for the strength of within-compound associations) and retrospective cue competition but not forward cue competition. This was indeed found in a study of [Melchers, K. G., Lachnit, H., & Shanks, D. (2004). Within-compound associations in retrospective revaluation and in direct learning: A challenge for comparator theory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 57B, pp. 25-54.]. We argue that a higher-order reasoning account of causal learning can also explain the evidence for the role of within-compound associations in cue competition. Moreover, this account predicts that if making inferences during the learning stage is impeded, a correlation between memory for compounds and forward cue competition should be found as well. The results of a new study confirmed this prediction.     

Unconscious semantic activation depends on feature-specific attention allocation

We examined whether semantic activation by subliminally presented stimuli is dependent upon the extent to which participants assign attention to specific semantic stimulus features and stimulus dimensions. Participants pronounced visible target words that were preceded by briefly presented, masked prime words. Both affective and non-affective semantic congruence of the prime-target pairs were manipulated under conditions that either promoted selective attention for affective stimulus information or selective attention for non-affective semantic stimulus information. In line with our predictions, results showed that affective congruence had a clear impact on word pronunciation latencies only if participants were encouraged to assign attention to the affective stimulus dimension. In contrast, non-affective semantic relatedness of the prime-target pairs produced no priming at all. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that unconscious activation of (affective) semantic information is modulated by feature-specific attention allocation.     

Instruction-based task-rule congruency effects

In the present study, we investigated the functional characteristics of task sets that were never applied before and were formed only on the basis of instructions. We tested if such task sets could elicit a task-rule congruency effect, which implies the automatic activation of responses in the context of another task. To this end, a novel procedure was developed that revealed instruction-based task-rule congruency effects in 2 experiments. Although the effect seems quite general (Experiment 1), it still necessitates the formation of a task set, as it cannot be induced by the mere maintenance of instructions in declarative working memory (Experiment 2). We conclude that a task set representing only key features of an upcoming task can be formed on the basis of instructions alone to such a degree that it can automatically trigger a response tendency in another task. Implications of our results for the impact of instructions on performance in general and for the occurrence of task-rule congruency effects in particular are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).