Relative speed of processing determines color–word contingency learning

Abstract

In three experiments, we tested a relative-speed-of-processing account of color-word contingency learning, a phenomenon in which color identification responses to high-contingency stimuli (words that appear most often in particular colors) are faster than those to low-contingency stimuli. Experiment 1 showed equally large contingency-learning effects whether responding was to the colors or to the words, likely due to slow responding to both dimensions because of the unfamiliar mapping required by the key press responses. For Experiment 2, participants switched to vocal responding, in which reading words is considerably faster than naming colors, and we obtained a contingency-learning effect only for color naming, the slower dimension. In Experiment 3, previewing the color information resulted in a reduced contingency-learning effect for color naming, but it enhanced the contingency-learning effect for word reading. These results are all consistent with contingency learning influencing performance only when the nominally irrelevant feature is faster to process than the relevant feature, and therefore are entirely in accord with a relative-speed-of-processing explanation.

Cue Competition and Incidental Learning: No Blocking or Overshadowing in the Colour-Word Contingency Learning Procedure Without Instructions to Learn

“…We therefore set out to examine whether blocking and overshadowing can be observed within a particular incidental learning task: the color-word contingency learning task (Schmidt, Crump, Cheesman, & Besner, 2007). In the typical preparation, participants are presented a coloured word on each trial and are asked to respond to the print colour, typically with a key press (Schmidt & De Houwer, 2016a, 2016b or oral response (Atalay & Misirlisoy, 2012;Forrin & MacLeod, 2017). The words in the task are colour-unrelated neutral words.…”

“…Indeed, presence of the effect does not depend on contingency awareness. Although certain participants eventually become subjectively aware of the contingency manipulation, many others remain completely oblivious to it but still show a learning effect (Schmidt & De Houwer, 2012a, 2012b, 2012dForrin & MacLeod, 2017, 2018.…”

Category learning in the color-word contingency learning paradigm

“…Even though in past reports many different stimulus dimensions have been used for both the task-irrelevant distracter (e.g., shapes, words, nonwords, colours) and task-relevant target (e.g., colours, colour words, neutral words, positive/negatively valenced words) stimuli (Forrin & MacLeod, 2017;Levin & Tzelgov, 2016;Schmidt & De Houwer, 2012b, 2012c, it was always the case that single, frequently repeated stimuli were the predictive stimuli. In the colour-word contingency learning paradigm depicted above, a very small set of irrelevant stimuli (e.g., three words in the example in Table 1) are presented repeatedly, with each of these distracting stimuli presented highly frequently in one colour (e.g., "look" printed in red multiple times) and less frequently in other colours (e.g., "look" in green or yellow only occasionally).…”

Learning simple associations.

“…Put more simply, words are responded to faster in only certain contexts, such as reading aloud. I agree that this more nuanced perspective on the results of Forrin and MacLeod (2017) is to be preferred.…”

“…Since the Forrin and MacLeod (2017) article, Schmidt (2018) has presented a modified explanation based on his PEP model. In this response, he argued in favor of a key role for relevant stimulus-response compatibility.…”