Implicitly learning when to be ready: From instances to categories

Abstract

There is growing appreciation for the role of long-term memory in guiding temporal preparation in speeded reaction time tasks. In experiments with variable foreperiods between a warning stimulus (S1) and a target stimulus (S2), preparation is affected by foreperiod distributions experienced in the past, long after the distribution has changed. These effects from memory can shape preparation largely implicitly, outside of participants’ awareness. Recent studies have demonstrated the associative nature of memory-guided preparation. When distinct S1s predict different foreperiods, they can trigger differential preparation accordingly. Here, we propose that memory-guided preparation allows for another key feature of learning: the ability to generalize across acquired associations and apply them to novel situations. Participants completed a variable foreperiod task where S1 was a unique image of either a face or a scene on each trial. Images of either category were paired with different distributions with predominantly shorter versus predominantly longer foreperiods. Participants displayed differential preparation to never-before seen images of either category, without being aware of the predictive nature of these categories. They continued doing so in a subsequent Transfer phase, after they had been informed that these contingencies no longer held. A novel rolling regression analysis revealed at a fine timescale how category-guided preparation gradually developed throughout the task, and that explicit information about these contingencies only briefly disrupted memory-guided preparation. These results offer new insights into temporal preparation as the product of a largely implicit process governed by associative learning from past experiences.

FMTP: A unifying computational framework of temporal preparation across time scales.

“…f MTP offers a new perspective on temporal orienting: Rather than a controlled process triggered by the cue, temporal orienting might predominantly result from associative learning between the two cues and their associated FP distributions. This alternative explanation is supported by a recent series of experiments (Kruijne et al, 2021;Los et al, 2021) that reveal that different S1 stimuli paired with different FP distributions, can lead to long-lasting differential preparation within a participant, similar to the transfer effects shown in Figure 13 (see Simulation 4; Los et al, 2017). Crucially, such differential preparation was found regardless of whether participants were This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.…”

Change of Variable-Foreperiod Effects within an Experiment: A Bayesian Modeling Approach

“…One reason for the lack of direct evidence is that most statistical tests in the literature were on mean RTs across all trials, which would conceal any change of foreperiod effects within an experiment. Some exceptions are studies of Visalli et al (2019) and Kruijne et al (2022). The former modeled the update of time hazard information using a Bayesian way of thinking and the latter used a rolling regression method to demonstrate the change of temporal preparation within an experiment.…”

“…Such a method is informative regarding both confirming the short-term characteristic of the SFP effect and differentiating the predictions from different accounts. Visalli et al (2019) and Kruijne et al (2022) are two rare previous attempts on related topics. The former used a Bayesian way of thinking to describe how participants update the information about the hazard function.…”

“…Visalli et al ( 2019 ) and Kruijne et al ( 2022 ) are two rare previous attempts on related topics. The former used a Bayesian way of thinking to describe how participants update the information about the hazard function.…”