Attention toward contexts modulates context-specificity of behavior in human predictive learning: Evidence from the n-back task

Abstract

According to the attentional theory of context processing (ATCP), learning becomes context specific when acquired under conditions that promote attention toward contextual stimuli regardless of whether attention deployment is guided by learning experience or by other factors unrelated to learning. In one experiment with humans, we investigated whether performance in a predictive learning task can be brought under contextual control by means of a secondary task that was unrelated to predictive learning, but supposed to modulate participants' attention toward contexts. Initially, participants acquired cue-outcome relationships presented in contexts that were each composed of two elements from two dimensions. Acquisition training in the predictive learning task was combined with a one-back task that required participants to match across consecutive trials context elements belonging to one of the two dimensions. During a subsequent test, we observed that acquisition behavior in the predictive learning task was disrupted by changing the acquisition context along the dimension that was relevant for the one-back task, while there was no evidence for context specificity of predictive learning when the acquisition context was changed along the dimension that was irrelevant for the one-back task. Our results support the generality of the principles advocated by ATCP.

Left Inferior Frontal Gyrus Participates in Mediating the Renewal Effect Irrespective of Context Salience

“…Thus, a crucial factor is the amount of attention dedicated to context stimuli, which again might be influenced by specific context characteristics. Correspondingly, attention to a context was found to modulate context-specificity of behavior (Uengoer et al, 2018). Relevant contexts received more attention (in terms of gaze duration), which led to more context-specific learning of humans in a behavioral predictive learning task (Lucke et al, 2013(Lucke et al, , 2014.…”

Attentional instructions modulate differential context-switch effects after short and long training in human predictive learning.

“…These results agree with the idea raised by Rosas et al (2006; Ogallar et al, 2017; Rosas & Callejas-Aguilera, 2006, 2007; see also Gawronski, Rydell, Vervliet, & De Houwer, 2010, for a related explanation in evaluative learning) that context-switch effects depend on the attention contexts receive during training, rather than on specific features of the information (cf., Bouton, 1993, 1994; Nelson, 2002, 2009), and that this attention may be modulated by the subjective relevance of the context. Subjective relevance of contextual features has been modulated by manipulating the informative value of the contexts, both in humans (e.g., León et al, 2010b, 2012; Lucke et al, 2013, 2014; see also Uengoer et al, 2018) and nonhuman animals (Preston et al, 1986). This study shows that subjective relevance of the context in human beings may be modulated by instructions.…”

“…Context subjective relevance is assumed to be modulated by the actual informative value of the context (e.g., León, Abad, & Rosas, 2008; León, Abad, & Rosas, 2010b; León, Gámez, & Rosas, 2012; Lucke, Lachnit, Koenig, & Uengoer, 2013; Lucke, Lachnit, Stüttgen, & Uengoer, 2014; Preston, Dickinson, & Mackintosh, 1986) by the relative salience of contexts and cues (e.g., Abad, Ramos-Álvarez, & Rosas, 2009; Moreno-Fernández, Abad, Ramos-Álvarez, & Rosas, 2011, see also Bouton & Sunsay, 2001), by previous experience that makes context features relevant or irrelevant within a different task (Uengoer, Lucke, & Lachnit, 2018; see also Uengoer, Pearce, Lachnit, & Koenig, 2018), and by instructions that lead human participants to attend or to ignore the context (e.g., Cañadas, Rodríguez-Bailón, Milliken, & Lupiáñez, 2013; Eich, 1985; Mertens & De Houwer, 2016; but see Neumann, 2007).…”

Principles of extinction learning of nonaversive experience

“…Studies of human associative learning have revealed that response recovery after extinction is weaker when initial acquisition (Lucke et al, 2013) or extinction (Lucke et al, 2014) was conducted in a context that had been trained as being irrelevant for other stimulus-outcome relationships, compared with a context trained as being relevant. Measures of eye-gaze behavior (Lucke et al, 2013) and other experimental approaches (Uengoer et al, 2018) suggest that the impact of context information on context-dependent learning is based on processes of selective attention.…”