Pairings in Learning and Perception: Pavlovian Conditioning and Contingent Aftereffects

Abstract

This chapter discusses that the consequence of the pairing of sensory events is of interest to perception researchers, as well as to learning researchers. Such pairing is the central feature of a well known perceptual phenomenon, the McCollough effect (ME). It attempts to integrate these two research traditions. It summarizes the evidence indicating that the vocabulary, techniques, and theoretical analyses of Pavlovian conditioning are useful in understanding the phenomenon reported over 25 years ago. One virtue of the conditioning analysis of the ME is that it is integrative. There are many contingent aftereffects, both visual and nonvisual. The conditioning interpretation is as relevant to a contingent temporal aftereffect as a contingent color aftereffect. The conditioning interpretation of the ME makes unique, testable, and counterintuitive predictions about the phenomenon. Thus, the ME should be-and is-subject to blocking, unblocking, overshadowing, and post-trial episode (PTE) effects. Although creative skeptics may interpret some of these findings as consistent with a nonassociative account of the ME, they are hard pressed to incorporate all these findings in a parsimonious interpretation that does not acknowledge associative principles. Not only can conditioning principles elucidate the ME, but the ME also helps to understand conditioning. For example, the aftereffect is maximal with simultaneous pairings.