Contingency Learning Research Articles

Public Policy Europeanisation in Response to the Covid‐19 Crisis: The Case of Job Retention Schemes

<p>To what extent and how did the Covid-19-pandemic trigger the Europeanisation of public policy in the EU member states? This article addresses this question by exploring member states’ responses to the labour market implications of the pandemic. Although the EU due to its free movement principles in effect has a common labour market, labour market policies have remained in the hands of the member states. Nonetheless, we find that they responded in a surprisingly similar manner to rising unemployment caused by lockdowns. Was this policy change linked to Europeanisation processes, and if so, in what way? We find that member states’ responses were related both to economic incentives and to contingent learning playing out in largely informal settings at the EU level. Our findings shed light on how crises may function as a critical juncture that triggers policy change, and how the EU may play a key role in such change. Our study thus also adds insights to our understanding of the mechanisms that underpin Europeanisation, in particular by shedding light on the importance of informal learning processes and the influence of the European Commission also in formally less integrated policy areas.</p>

Associative interference and nonreinforcement in human contingency learning.

This article reports three experiments comparing the impact on contingency assessment of associative cue interference (proactive, interspersed, and retroactive) and nonreinforcement (latent inhibition, partial reinforcement, and extinction). All three experiments used variants of the rapid trial streaming procedure developed by Allan and collaborators. Participants were exposed to stimulus streams and then asked how likely it was for a target cue to be accompanied (Experiment 1) or to be followed (Experiments 2 and 3) by a target outcome. Experiments 1 and 2 looked at interference and found that when the objective target cue-outcome contingency is positive, interspersed interference is more effective than either proactive or retroactive interference. Experiment 2 additionally showed that this conclusion was a function of the target cue-outcome contingency: when the number of cue-outcome pairings was low, retroactive interference was more efficient than interspersed interference. Experiment 3 examined nonreinforcement and found that the efficacies of latent inhibition, partial reinforcement, and extinction are also a function of the target cue-outcome contingency, but the pattern differed greatly from what was observed in Experiment 2. When the number of cue-outcome pairings was high, there was no difference between latent inhibition, partial reinforcement, and extinction. When the number of cue-outcome pairings was low, extinction did not lower the contingency judgement, whereas latent inhibition and partial reinforcement did.

Contingency learning on the proportional congruency effect of the Stroop task is manifest in deviant processing.

The proportion congruency effect has been reported in interference tasks. The mostly congruent block is the frequent condition, and the mostly incongruent block is the rare condition for congruent stimuli, whereas the mostly congruent block is the rare condition, and the mostly incongruent block is the frequent condition for incongruent stimuli. This study examined the cognitive mechanism underlying the proportion congruency effect in the two-choice Stroop task using event-related potential components related to deviant processing. Stimuli were Kanji characters meaning 'red' and 'blue' painted by congruent and incongruent colors. Participants were required to provide a two-choice button-press response corresponding to the colors. The congruent and incongruent stimuli were presented on rare (20%) and frequent (80%) conditions. N1 was enhanced in the rare condition relative to the frequent condition for both congruent and incongruent stimuli. The results suggested that colors and characters were not processed independently in the N1 time range, which made selective attention to the relevant feature difficult. Posterior negativity from 200 to 250 ms was also different between rare and frequent conditions, indicating the presence of visual mismatch negativity for congruent and incongruent stimuli. It was considered that the distinction between congruent and incongruent stimuli was evident in mostly incongruent blocks, indicating that the selective attention mechanism was not actively engaged. The proportion congruency effect was explained by contingency learning rather than selective attention in the present task. The cognitive mechanisms underlying the proportion congruency effect are reflected by deviant event-related potential components.

Proactive control affects task conflict beyond contingency learning.

Various models of the Stroop task suggest that proactive task control adaptation accounts for the modulation of task conflict in different conditions of the Stroop task, for example, when task conflict is very frequent or very infrequent. Other researchers have argued that a contingency learning of colour-word associations is the main contributor to the modulations of the Stroop effect. In this work, we constructed a design that controls for confounds that are suspected to rule out the role of control adaptation in the Stroop task. We focused on one type of conflict-task conflict and tested whether colour-naming of neutral-words (where task conflict is present) differed from colour-naming of neutral-symbols (where task conflict is not present) in four different conditions: mostly words-congruent, mostly words-incongruent, mostly words-neutral, or mostly non-words-shape. Importantly, the conditions used for the task conflict marker were identical in all four conditions. We found that the marker of task conflict (reaction time [RT] for neutral-words > RT for neutral-symbols) was significant in the mostly non-words-shape condition, where proactive task control is relaxed, but not in the mostly words conditions, where proactive task control is activated, with no difference between these three words conditions. These findings suggest that control adaptation is the main contributor to the modulations of the Stroop effect. The relevance of the results to the current literature is discussed and the results are explained in light of the proactive control-task conflict (PC-TC) model.

Automatizing Sight Reading: Contingency Proportion and Task Relevance in the Music Contingency Learning Procedure

Learning to read and play music written in standard notation, termed sight reading, is an important yet difficult aspect of early music education. However, the music contingency learning procedure produces rapid and robust early learning of the motor execution associated with note positions. In this task, nonmusicians identify a note name (e.g., “do”) written inside a note in one of the vertical positions of the musical staff with a keyboard response. Each note position is presented frequently with the matching (congruent) note name and rarely with the incongruent note names. The present work further explores this novel learning paradigm. In Experiment 1, we manipulated the proportion of congruent trials from 50 to 100%. The contingency effect, along with contingency awareness (i.e., verbalizable knowledge of note meanings), increased with a stronger contingency manipulation. In Experiment 2, half of the participants responded to the note positions (instead of the note names) with a keyboard response. A learning effect was also observed for this task, though contingency awareness was reduced in this group. These results shed more light on the properties of incidental music learning and further suggest more ideal parameters for future practical applications to supplement traditional instruction in real-world music education.

EXPRESS: Contingency learning and episodic contributions to the Item-Specific Proportion Congruent Effect.

Several studies have challenged the conflict adaptation account of cognitive control effects, suggesting that they are the result of learning/memory processes independent from control modulation. Some authors have suggested that the Item-Specific Proportion Congruent (ISPC) effect (i.e., the smaller congruency effect on items presented frequently in an incongruent combination) is driven by color-word contingency learning (CL). However, it has recently been suggested that CL can be explained in terms of episodic retrieval of the response given to the last encounter with the same stimulus, with no role of associative learning. The present study aims to analyze the independent role of CL and episodic retrieval on the ISPC effect. Experiment 1 showed no effect of control modulation and indicated that, when manipulated independently, learning-driven contingency is modulated by the episodic factor, but it remains significant. Experiments 2 and 3 extended the study of the interplay between learning and recency to the color-word CL paradigm, finding larger contingency effects on color words compared to neutral ones and replicating the interaction between CL and episodic retrieval from Experiment 1. Surprisingly, these two experiments also showed control modulation apart from contingency and recency effects in color words. In sum, our study reveals that the ISPC effect results from the joint contribution of cognitive control, associative learning, and episodic effects.

Social norms shape visual appearance: Taking a closer look at the link between social norm learning and perceptual decision-making

One of the most fundamental questions in social psychology is whether norms can change individuals' minds by shaping the visual appearance of stimuli. This question was first raised by Muzafer Sherif (1935). Drawing on the extended social reinforcement account (Germar and Mojzisch, 2019), we aimed to provide a rigorous test of the hypothesis that norm learning leads to a persistent perceptual bias and, hence, to a change in the visual appearance of stimuli. From a methodological perspective, we used both a diffusion model approach and the method of adjustment, a well-established technique from psychophysics and vision research. The results of Experiments 1–3 show that norm effects on perceptual decision-making are robustly replicable, and are due to genuine social influence, that is, they cannot be explained by non-social priming, contingency learning effects (Experiments 1 and 2) or anchoring effects (Experiment 3). Most importantly, by using a psychophysical approach, Experiment 4 shows, for the first time, that social norm learning alters individuals' point of subjective equality and, hence, the visual appearance of stimuli.

Simultaneous Engagement of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Control in the Stroop Task

Abstract: In this study, with three Stroop task experiments, we investigated simultaneous engagement of list-wide and item-specific control mechanisms and their potential interaction. By using list-wide proportion congruency (LWPC), item-specific proportion congruency (ISPC)-transfer, and unbiased-transfer sets that were made up of distinct color-word pairings, we were able to observe both LWPC and ISPC effects. By comparing the LWPC effects that were observed with the ISPC-transfer sets and the unbiased-transfer sets, we investigated the relationship between item-specific control and list-wide control. By comparing the findings from Experiments 1 and 2 with the findings of Experiment 3, we observed the possible mediating role of contingency learning in the ISPC-transfer sets on the generalizability of list-wide control. Across all experiments, we consistently observed item-specific control, with the ISPC effect. Although we did not find evidence for list-wide control in the first two experiments, in the third experiment, where color-word contingency learning was minimal for ISPC-transfer items, we observed a significant LWPC effect. Our findings indicate that the introduction of contingency learning in the ISPC-transfer items may reduce top-down control. Importantly, none of the experiments revealed an interaction between item-specific control and list-wide control, suggesting that these two control mechanisms operated independently.

One Link to Link Them All.

A conditioned response to a stimulus can be transferred to an associated stimulus, as seen in sensory preconditioning. In this research paper, we aimed to explore this phenomenon using a stimulus-response contingency learning paradigm using voluntary actions as responses. We conducted two preregistered experiments that explored whether a learned response can be indirectly activated by a stimulus (S1) that was never directly paired with the response itself. Importantly, S1 was previously associated with another stimulus (S2) that was then directly and contingently paired with a response (S2-R contingency). In Experiment 1a, an indirect activation of acquired stimulus-response contingencies was present for audiovisual stimulus pairs wherein the stimulus association resembled a vocabulary learning setup. This result was replicated in Experiment 1b. Additionally, we found that the effect is moderated by having conscious awareness of the S1-S2 association and the S2-R contingency. By demonstrating indirect activation effects for voluntary actions, our findings show that principles of Pavlovian conditioning like sensory preconditioning also apply to contingency learning of stimulus-response relations for operant behavior.

Contingency learning in zebrafish exposed to apomorphine- and levetiracetam.

Cognitive rigidity (CR) refers to inadequate executive adaptation in the face of changing circumstances. Increased CR is associated with a number of psychiatric disorders, for example, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and improving cognitive functioning by targeting CR in these conditions, may be fruitful. Levetiracetam (LEV), clinically used to treat epilepsy, may have pro-cognitive effects by restoring balance to neuronal signalling. To explore this possibility, we applied apomorphine (APO) exposure in an attempt to induce rigid cue-directed responses following a cue (visual pattern)-reward (social conspecifics) contingency learning phase and to assess the effects of LEV on such behaviours. Briefly, zebrafish were divided into four different 39-day-long exposure groups ( n = 9-10) as follows: control (CTRL), APO (100 µg/L), LEV (750 µg/L) and APO + LEV (100 µg/L + 750 µg/L). The main findings of this experiment were that 1) all four exposure groups performed similarly with respect to reward- and cue-directed learning over the first two study phases, 2) compared to the CTRL group, all drug interventions, but notably the APO + LEV combination, lowered the degree of reward-directed behaviour during a dissociated presentation of the cue and reward, and 3) temporal and spatial factors influenced the manner in which zebrafish responded to the presentation of the reward. Future studies are needed to explore the relevance of these findings for our understanding of the potential cognitive effects of LEV.

Does your past define you? The role of previous visual experience in subjective reactions to new affective pictures and sounds.

According to predictive models of emotion, people use previous experience to construct affective predictions, represented multimodally in the brain. We do not live in a stable world, however. Some environments are uncertain, whereas others are not. In two experiments we investigated how experiencing previous certain versus uncertain contingencies shaped subjective reactions to future affective stimuli, within and across sensory modalities. Two S1-S2 paradigms were used as learning and test phases. S1s were colored circles, S2s negative/neutral affective pictures or sounds. During the learning phase, participants (N = 192, 179) were assigned to the certain (CG) or uncertain group (UG) and presented with 100% (CG) or 50% (UG) S1-S2 congruency between visual stimuli. During the test phase, participants were presented with a new 75% S1-S2 paradigm and visual (Experiment 1) or auditory (Experiment 2) S2s. Participants were asked to rate the expected valence of upcoming S2s (expectancy ratings) or valence and arousal to S2s. In both experiments, the CG reported more extreme expectancy ratings than the UG, suggesting that experiencing previous reliable S1-S2 associations led CG participants to subsequently predict similar associations. No group differences emerged on valence and arousal ratings, which were more prominently influenced by the new 75% contingencies of the test phase rather than by previous learned contingencies. Last, comparing the two experiments, no significant group by experiment interaction was found, supporting the hypothesis of cross-modality generalization at the subjective level. Overall, our results advance knowledge about the mechanisms by which previous learned contingencies shape subjective affective experience. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Low-Dose Ketamine-Induced Deficits in Arbitrary Visuomotor Mapping in Monkeys.

Ketamine, an NMDA antagonist, is widely used in clinical settings. Recently, low-dose ketamine has gained attention because of its promising role as a rapid antidepressant. However, the effects of low-dose ketamine on brain function, particularly higher cognitive functions of primate brains, are not fully understood. In this study, we used two macaques as subjects and found that acute low-dose ketamine administration significantly impaired the ability for arbitrary visuomotor mapping (AVM), a form of associative learning (AL) essential for flexible behaviors, including executions of learned stimuli-response contingency or learning of new contingencies. We conducted in-depth analyses and identified intrinsic characteristics of these ketamine-induced functional deficits, including lowered accuracy, prolonged time for planning and movement execution, increased tendency to make errors when visual cues are changed from trial to trial, and stronger impact on combining associative learning and another key higher cognitive function, working memory (WM). Our results shed new light on how associative learning relies on the NMDA-mediated synaptic transmission of the brain and contribute to a better understanding of the potential acute side effects of low-dose ketamine on cognition, which can help facilitate its safe usage in medical practice.

Robust evidence for proactive conflict adaptation in the proportion-congruent paradigm.

In the standard Proportion-Congruent (PC) paradigm, performance is compared between a list containing mostly congruent (MC) stimuli (e.g., the word RED in the color red in the Stroop task; Stroop, 1935) and a list containing mostly incongruent (MI) stimuli (e.g., the word BLUE in red). The PC effect, the finding that the congruency effect (i.e., the latency difference between incongruent and congruent stimuli) is typically larger in an MC list, has been interpreted by the popular conflict-monitoring account (Botvinick et al., 2001) as reflecting a proactive process whereby attention to task-relevant information is adapted based on how frequently conflict from task-irrelevant information arises. Recently, however, alternative accounts of the PC effect have emerged that assume either that the PC effect reflects processes other than proactive conflict adaptation (e.g., stimulus-response contingency learning) or that proactive conflict adaptation is only engaged as a last resort (e.g., when contingency learning cannot be used to minimize interference). We examined these ideas in three experiments in which proactive conflict adaptation could be evaluated independently from processes that are normally confounded with it in the PC paradigm, while still allowing those processes, particularly contingency learning, to be used to minimize interference. Consistent with the conflict-monitoring account of the PC effect, but inconsistent with all the alternative accounts of the PC effect, evidence for proactive conflict adaptation emerged in all experiments. Although multiple processes may be engaged in the PC paradigm, this paradigm remains a valid tool for examining proactive conflict adaptation, its typical use. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Viral vector-mediated upregulation of serine racemase expression in medial prefrontal cortex improves learning and synaptic function in middle age rats.

An age-associated decrease in N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR)-mediated synaptic function contributes to impaired synaptic plasticity and is associated with cognitive impairments. Levels of serine racemase (SR), an enzyme that synthesizes D-serine, an NMDAR co-agonist, decline with age. Thus, enhancing NMDAR function via increased SR expression in middle age, when subtle declines in cognition emerge, was predicted to enhance performance on a prefrontal cortex-mediated task sensitive to aging. Middle-aged (~12 mo) male Fischer-344 rats were injected bilaterally in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) with viral vector (LV), SR (LV-SR) or control (LV-GFP). Rats were trained on the operant attentional set-shift task (AST) to examine cognitive flexibility and attentional function. LV-SR rats exhibited a faster rate of learning compared to controls during visual discrimination of the AST. Extradimensional set shifting and reversal were not impacted. Immunohistochemical analyses demonstrated that LV-SR significantly increased SR expression in the mPFC. Electrophysiological characterization of synaptic transmission in the mPFC slices obtained from LV-GFP and LV-SR animals indicated a significant increase in isolated NMDAR-mediated synaptic responses in LV-SR slices. Thus, results of the current study demonstrated that prefrontal SR upregulation in middle age rats can improve learning of task contingencies for visual discrimination and increase glutamatergic synaptic transmission, including NMDAR activity.

Editorial—The truth is out there: The psychology of conspiracy theories and how to counter them

Editorial—The truth is out there: The psychology of conspiracy theories and how to counter them

Interpretation of ambiguous trials along with reasoning strategy is related to causal judgements in zero-contingency learning.

The dual strategy model suggests that people can use either a Statistical or a Counterexample reasoning strategy, which reflects two qualitatively different ways of processing information. This model has been shown to capture individual differences in a wide array of tasks, such as contingency learning. Here, we examined whether this extends to individual differences in the interpretation of contingency information where effects are ambiguous. Previous studies, using perceptually complex stimuli, have shown that the way in which participants interpret ambiguous effects predicts causal judgements. In two studies, we attempted to replicate this effect using a small number of clearly identifiable cues. Results show that the interpretation of ambiguous effects as effect present is related to final contingency judgements. In addition, results showed that Statistical reasoners had a stronger tendency to interpret ambiguous effects as effect present than Counterexample reasoners, which mediates the difference in contingency judgements.

Systemic kappa opioid receptor antagonism accelerates reinforcement learning via augmentation of novelty processing in male mice

Selective inhibition of kappa opioid receptors (KORs) is highly anticipated as a pharmacotherapeutic intervention for substance use disorders and depression. The accepted explanation for KOR antagonist-induced amelioration of aberrant behaviors posits that KORs globally function as a negative valence system; antagonism thereby blunts the behavioral influence of negative internal states such as anhedonia and negative affect. While effects of systemic KOR manipulations have been widely reproduced, explicit evaluation of negative valence as an explanatory construct is lacking. Here, we tested a series of falsifiable hypotheses generated a priori based on the negative valence model by pairing reinforcement learning tasks with systemic pharmacological KOR blockade in male C57BL/6J mice. The negative valence model failed to predict multiple experimental outcomes: KOR blockade accelerated contingency learning during both positive and negative reinforcement without altering innate responses to appetitive or aversive stimuli. We next proposed novelty processing, which influences learning independent of valence, as an alternative explanatory construct. Hypotheses based on novelty processing predicted subsequent observations: KOR blockade increased exploration of a novel, but not habituated, environment and augmented the reinforcing efficacy of novel visual stimuli in a sensory reinforcement task. Together, these results revise and extend long-standing theories of KOR system function.

Theta oscillations in anterior cingulate cortex and orbitofrontal cortex differentially modulate accuracy and speed in flexible reward learning.

Flexible reward learning relies on frontal cortex, with substantial evidence indicating that anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) subregions play important roles. Recent studies in both rat and macaque suggest theta oscillations (5-10 Hz) may be a spectral signature that coordinates this learning. However, network-level interactions between ACC and OFC in flexible learning remain unclear. We investigated the learning of stimulus-reward associations using a combination of simultaneous in vivo electrophysiology in dorsal ACC and ventral OFC, partnered with bilateral inhibitory DREADDs in ACC. In freely behaving male and female rats and using a within-subject design, we examined accuracy and speed of response across distinct and precisely defined trial epochs during initial visual discrimination learning and subsequent reversal of stimulus-reward contingencies. Following ACC inhibition, there was a propensity for random responding in early reversal learning, with correct vs. incorrect trials distinguished only from OFC, not ACC, theta power differences in the reversal phase. ACC inhibition also hastened incorrect choices during reversal. This same pattern of change in accuracy and speed was not observed in viral control animals. Thus, characteristics of impaired reversal learning following ACC inhibition are poor deliberation and weak theta signaling of accuracy in this region. The present results also point to OFC theta oscillations as a prominent feature of reversal learning, unperturbed by ACC inhibition.

Acquisition and extinction across multiple virtual reality contexts

This experiment examined the effects on recovery following a human contingency learning task across multiple virtual contexts. Specifically, if recovery of excitatory responding can be attenuated by experimental extinction in a single context or across multiple contexts when acquisition was also conducted in a single context or across multiple contexts. Sixty-one participants received conditioned stimulus (CS) and unconditioned stimulus (US) pairings in one or three virtual contexts. Orthogonal to this, participants received experimental extinction (CS presentations alone) in one or three different virtual contexts. Participants were then tested in a novel virtual context and the differences in expectation levels of the US in the presence of the CS were compared. Participants that experienced acquisition in one context and extinction in multiple contexts showed lower expectation of the US relative to participants that experienced acquisition and extinction in one context. Participants that experienced acquisition across multiple contexts, however, had higher expectation of the US regardless of whether extinction was also conducted across multiple contexts. This study demonstrated that learning across multiple contexts can negatively impact subsequent extinction; it is the first to do so using interactive VR-generated contexts, and it is the first to demonstrate this effect in humans and only the second study to demonstrate this effect at all. These findings highlight the importance of learning history and the likelihood that first-learned associations acquired across multiple contexts may interfere with subsequent extinction treatment. Availability of data and materialsThe dataset generated during and/or analysed during the current study is available on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/64tzw/?view_only= 20aaa34f9fd44f108a8391ca426a7031.

Correlation between performance and quantity/variability of leg exploration in a contingency learning task during infancy

Quantity and quality of motor exploration are proposed to be fundamental for infant motor development. However, it is still not clear what types of motor exploration contribute to learning. To determine whether changes in quantity of leg movement and/or variability of leg acceleration are related to performance in a contingency learning task, twenty 6–8-month-old infants with typical development participated in a contingency learning task. During this task, a robot provided reinforcement when the infant’s right leg peak acceleration was above an individualized threshold. The correlation coefficient between the infant’s performance and the change in quantity of right leg movement, linear variability, and nonlinear variability of right leg movement acceleration from baseline were calculated. Simple linear regression and multiple linear regression were calculated to explain the contribution of each variable to the performance individually and collectively. We found significant correlation between the performance and the change in quantity of right leg movement (r = 0.86, p < 0.001), linear variability (r = 0.71, p < 0.001), and nonlinear variability (r = 0.62, p = 0.004) of right leg movement acceleration, respectively. However, multiple linear regression showed that only quantity and linear variability of leg movements were significant predicting factors for the performance ratio (p < 0.001, adjusted R2 = 0.94). These results indicated that the quantity of exploration and variable exploratory strategies could be critical for the motor learning process during infancy.