Researchers typically classify behavior as habitual if it occurs independently of changes in the value of its outcomes (revaluation test) or the impact it has on those outcomes (contingency degradation test). We argue that these tests are valid only if they (a) are sufficiently sensitive and (b) target the outcomes that might actually control behavior. These criteria resemble the sensitivity and information criteria that are widely adopted in research on learning without awareness. We argue that past and future evidence for habits should be evaluated in light of these criteria and illustrate this approach by applying the information criterion to the studies conducted by de Wit et al. (2007, 2013). In three experiments that were modelled after these studies, we used alternative revaluation and contingency degradation tests that targeted other outcomes than those targeted in the original studies. These alternative tests consistently provided evidence for knowledge of outcomes that could have controlled seemingly habitual behavior. Our results suggest that the revaluation test used by de Wit et al. (2007, 2013) did not meet the information criterion, which questions the validity of their conclusions regarding the habitual nature of the observed behavior.

Fear learning reflects the adaptive ability to learn to anticipate aversive events and to display preparatory fear reactions based on prior experiences. Usually, these learning experiences are modeled in the lab with pairings between a neutral conditioned stimulus (CS) and an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) (i.e., fear conditioning via CS-US pairings). Nevertheless, for humans, fear learning can also be based on verbal instructions. In this review, we consider the role of verbal instructions in laboratory fear learning. Specifically, we consider both the effects of verbal instructions on fear responses in the absence of CS-US pairings as well as the way in which verbal instructions moderate fear established via CS-US pairings. We first focus on the available empirical findings about both types of effects. More specifically, we consider how these effects are moderated by elements of the fear conditioning procedure (i.e., the stimuli, the outcome measures, the relationship between the stimuli, the participants, and the broader context). Thereafter, we discuss how well different mental-process models of fear learning account for these empirical findings. Finally, we conclude the review with a discussion of open questions and opportunities for future research.

Implicit bias is often viewed as a hidden force inside people that makes them perform inappropriate actions. This perspective can induce resistance against the idea that people are implicitly biased and complicates research on implicit bias. I put forward an alternative perspective that views implicit bias as a behavioral phenomenon. more specifically, it is seen as behavior that is automatically influenced by cues indicative of the social group to which others belong. This behavioral perspective is less likely to evoke resistance because implicit bias is seen as something that people do rather than possess and because it clearly separates the behavioral phenomenon from its normative implications. Moreover, performance on experimental tasks such as the Implicit Association Test is seen an instance of implicitly biased behavior rather than a proxy of hidden mental biases. Because these tasks allow for experimental control, they provide ideal tools for studying the automatic impact of social cues on behavior, for predicting other instances of biased behavior, and for educating people about implicitly biased behavior. The behavioral perspective not only changes the way we think about implicit bias but also shifts the aims of research on implicit bias and reveals links with other behavioral approaches such as network modeling.

When embedded among a number of plausible irrelevant options, the presentation of critical (e.g., crime-related or autobiographical) information is associated with a marked increase in response time (RT). This RT effect crucially depends on the inclusion of a target/non-target discrimination task with targets being a dedicated set of items that require a unique response (press YES; for all other items press NO). Targets may be essential because they share a feature - familiarity - with the critical items. Whereas irrelevant items have not been encountered before, critical items are known from the event or the facts of the investigation. Target items are usually learned before the test, and thereby made familiar to the participants. Hence, familiarity-based responding needs to be inhibited on the critical items and may therefore explain the RT increase on the critical items. This leads to the hypothesis that the more participants rely on familiarity, the more pronounced the RT increase on critical items may be. We explored two ways to increase familiarity-based responding: (1) Increasing the number of different target items, and (2) using familiar targets. In two web-based studies (n = 357 and n = 499), both the number of different targets and the use of familiar targets facilitated concealed information detection. The effect of the number of different targets was small yet consistent across both studies, the effect of target familiarity was large in both studies. Our results support the role of familiarity-based responding in the Concealed Information Test and point to ways on how to improve validity of the Concealed Information Test.

Theories of attention to emotional information suggest that attentional processes prioritize threatening information. Here, we suggest that attention will prioritize the events that are most instrumental to a goal in a given context, which in threatening situations typically is reaching safety. To test our hypotheses, we used an attentional cueing paradigm that contained cues signaling imminent threat (i.e., aversive noises) as well as cues that allowed to avoid threat (instrumental safety signals). Correct reactions to instrumental safety signals seemingly allowed participants to lower the presentation rate of the threat. Experiment 1 demonstrates that attention pri-

In performance-based measures of implicit contingency learning, learning effects have been observed very early in the task (e.g., within a few trials) and remain stable throughout the experiment. This has been taken to suggest that the contingency knowledge underlying the learning effects is formed almost instantly and does not develop further across trials. One potential concern with the available evidence is that response times are overall much slower early on in an experiment and speed up over practice in a decelerating function. If learning effects scale with overall response time, then learning effects observed early on in an experiment might be artificially inflated. In the current report with the colour-word contingency learning paradigm, participants were given an extended practice phase before introducing predictive stimuli (words). Thus, learning could be assessed after the large practice speedup in performance had already occurred. In one experiment, the contingency learning effect was found to again be fairly stable, but with a hint of an increasing effect with time. In a second experiment, words were pre-exposed in a neutral hue before being coloured.This increased the magnitude of the learning effect, suggesting a preparation time benefit.More importantly, the contingency learning effect was observed to increase over time. In a third experiment, we assessed unlearning rates when the contingency was removed, and relearning when the contingencies were reintroduced. The results revealed a cumulative effect of contingencies acquired across multiple blocks. In sum, the evidence reported in this paper shows that, contrary to previous claims, implicit contingency learning is cumulative.

Learning fear via the experience of contingencies between a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) is often assumed to be fundamentally different from learning fear via instructions. An open question is whether fear-related brain areas respond differently to experienced CS-US contingencies than to merely instructed CS-US contingencies. Here, we contrasted two experimental conditions where subjects were instructed to expect the same CS-US contingencies while only one condition was characterized by prior experience with the CS-US contingency. Using multivoxel pattern analysis of fMRI data, we found CS-related neural activation patterns in the right amygdala (but not in other fear-related regions) that dissociated between whether a CS-US contingency had been instructed and experienced versus merely instructed. A second experiment further corroborated this finding by showing a categoryindependent neural response to instructed and experienced, but not merely instructed, CS presentations in the human right amygdala. Together, these findings are in line with previous studies showing that verbal fear instructions have a strong impact on both brain and behavior. However, even in the face of fear instructions, the human right amygdala still shows a separable neural pattern response to experience-based fear contingencies.

It is often argued that people dislike situations in which there is conflict requiring cognitive control, possibly because it is effortful to resolve this conflict. In a recent study, Vermeylen, Braem, and Notebaert (2019) provided evidence for this idea in the context of task switching. They observed that participants evaluated cues signaling a task switch more negatively than cues signaling a task repetition in a task switching paradigm. The present study examined whether this evaluative bias can be observed also on the basis of mere instructions. We instructed participants that two non-words would either signal the requirement to switch or to repeat tasks in an upcoming task switching block, which was actually never administered. In Experiment 1, we did not observe more positive implicit or explicit evaluations of the instructed task repetition compared to the task switch cue. In Experiment 2, participants first completed a task switching block in which a first pair of transition cues were used. We then provided task switching instructions that described the signaling function of a second pair of cues, which would be used in an upcoming (but never administered) second task switching block. Participants showed a clear preference for both instructed and experienced task repetition cues on explicit but not on implicit evaluations. Experiment 3 replicated the instructed taskswitch evaluation effect on explicit evaluations in the context of prior task experience (but not without prior experience) and extended it to implicit evaluations. We discuss theoretical implications and potential explanations of this task-switch evaluation effect.