Connectionist theories of psychology propose that the accuracy of stimulus representations is a function of the extent to which its elements become interconnected, or associated, as a consequence of experience. To explore this idea, across three experiments, participants were required to solve a compound learned-predictiveness task, in which pairs of stimuli in each compound were established as either predictive or non-predictive of a subsequent outcome. Outcome probability was further manipulated as either probabilistic or deterministic. It was hypothesized that the propensity for one stimulus to connect with another within the compound would be greater when (a) it possessed higher relative predictive validity for an outcome and (b) was followed by an uncertain outcome relative to a deterministic outcome. Consequently, participants accuracy in recognising the conjunction of the previously exposed stimulus pairs should vary as a function of these variables. Across three experiments, which used old/new judgements following compound learned-predictiveness training, a consistent effect of predictive validity was observed - participants' hit rate for detecting a change in the conjunction of predictive stimuli was superior to changes in the conjunction of non-predictive stimuli. However, there was no effect of outcome uncertainty. The implications of these results for theories of learning and representation are discussed.

There is now robust evidence that individuals can direct their attention towards particularly valuable information in working memory. However, the cognitive mechanisms underlying such effects are still under debate. One possibility is that participants preferentially encode high value information, creating a stronger representation relative to other information presented. We tested this hypothesis in two experiments. Participants completed a visual working memory task, which involved remembering the color of shapes for a brief period of time. During the encoding phase participants’ eye movements were recorded to assess fixation behaviors. Participants were then presented with one shape and asked to report the color as accurately as possible on a color wheel. In Experiment 1, participants were either told that one particular item was more valuable (i.e., worth more notional points than the rest), or that all items were of equal value. In Experiment 2, each item differed in its value in a graded manner (i.e., 1-2-3-4 points). Across both experiments, participants exhibited the lowest recall error for the highest value information. Moreover, participants spent significantly longer fixating on high value items during the encoding phase relative to other information presented. Further, the extent to which participants fixated on an item during encoding partially mediated the effect of value on recall error. Taken together, these experiments demonstrate that participants vary their eye movements during encoding as a function of value, and suggest that value-driven prioritization effects in working memory are partially driven by such behaviors.

Visual attention to outcomes, and their subsequent encoding, is critical for sensitive responding and adaptation of behaviour. Research into the role of outcome encoding in individual differences has been hindered by a lack of cognitive tasks that can produce a reliable, and stable, metric. This property of test-retest reliability is critical when looking to associate cognitive functions with stable individual differences in personality, and forms of psychopathology. Here we describe the results of a test-retest reliability study, and exploratory assessment of construct validity, of a novel eye-tracking, associative learning task; the Giving Gifts (GG) task. Seventy-six undergraduate students were recruited with results showing that gaze allocation to the outcome stimuli and accuracy in task performance demonstrate excellent test-retest reliability and, within a young adult sample, are significantly associated with individual difference measures, most notably, callous-unemotional traits.

Valid predictors of an outcome attract more attention than stimuli that are nonpredictive. Furthermore, stimuli that have a probabilistic association with an outcome attract more attention than stimuli that have a deterministic association with an outcome. Two experiments investigated whether predictive validity and outcome uncertainty resulted in the establishment of a more accurate stimulus representation, in which accuracy was measured as the strength of associations between different elements of a compound stimulus. In Experiment 1, pairs of stimuli were established as outcome predictive (always followed by the same outcome) and presented in conjunction with nonpredictive pairs of stimuli (equally likely to be followed by two different outcomes). Outcome uncertainty was also manipulated, between groups, by establishing either a deterministic (100%) or probabilistic (80%) contingency between the predictive pairs and their outcomes. The test trials revealed more accurate recognition for which predictive stimuli were paired together relative to nonpredictive stimuli; however, there was no effect of outcome uncertainty. Experiment 2 reproduced the effect observed in the deterministic group from Experiment 1 and also demonstrated that the superior performance to the predictive stimuli over the nonpredictive stimuli was only evident when, at test, the choice stimuli had predicted different outcomes during training. These results were interpreted as the consequence of two pathways to accurate stimulus representation: direct (within-compound associations) and indirect (mediated through the activation of the outcome) and are discussed in the context of attentional theories of associative learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Three experiments explored how the repetition of a visual search display guides search during contextual cuing under conditions in which the search process is interrupted by an instructional (endogenous) cue for attention. In Experiment 1, participants readily learned about repeated configurations of visual search, before being presented with an endogenous cue for attention towards the target on every trial. Participants used this cue to improve search times, but the repeated contexts continued to guide attention. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the presence of the endogenous cue did not impede the acquisition of contextual cuing. Experiment 3 confirmed the hypothesis that the contextual cuing effect relies largely on localized distractor contexts, following the guidance of attention. Together, the experiments point towards an interplay between two drivers of attention: after the initial guidance of attention, memory representations of the context continue to guide attention towards the target. This suggests that the early part of visual search is inconsequential for the development and maintenance of the contextual cuing effect, and that memory representations are flexibly deployed when the search procedure is dramatically interrupted.

Two experiments examined the role that depth plays in the formation of associations during contextual cuing of visual search. Current associative models make predictions about the spatial constraints placed on learning within two-dimensional procedures, but there exists very little evidence of how these predictions translate to three-dimensional space. A virtual reality procedure was used to project the stimuli in three dimensions. Experiment 1 established a contextual cuing effect using this procedure, while Experiment 2 examined whether the relative distance between repeated distractors and the target or the position of the distractors relative to the observer modulated contextual cuing. It was found that the contextual cuing effect was consistent across these different conditions. As a result, there was no evidence to suggest that depth information forms a significant part of the representations that form during contextual cuing. These data are therefore broadly consistent with the mechanisms of current associative models of contextual cuing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The exploration/exploitation trade-off (EE trade-off) describes how, when faced with several competing alternatives, decision-makers must often choose between a known good alternative (exploitation) and one or more unknown but potentially more rewarding alternatives (exploration). Prevailing theory on how humans perform the EE trade-off states that uncertainty is a major motivator for exploration: the more uncertain the environment, the more exploration that will occur. The current paper examines whether exploratory behaviour in both choice and attention may be impacted differently depending on whether uncertainty is onset suddenly (unexpected uncertainty), or more slowly (expected uncertainty). It is shown that when uncertainty was expected, participants tended to explore less with their choices, but not their attention, than when it was unexpected. Crucially, the impact of this "protection from uncertainty" on exploration only occurred when participants had an opportunity to learn the structure of the task prior to experiencing uncertainty. This suggests that the interaction between uncertainty and exploration is more nuanced than simply more uncertainty leading to more exploration, and that attention and choice behaviour may index separate aspects of the EE trade-off.

Visual search is faster when it occurs within repeated displays, a phenomenon known as contextual cuing (CC). CC has been explained as the result of an automatic orientation of attention toward a target item driven by learned distractor-target associations. In 3 experiments we tested the specific hypothesis that CC is an automatic process of attentional guidance. Participants first searched for a T target in a standard CC procedure. Then, they experienced the same repeated configurations (with the T still present), but now searched for a Y target that was positioned either in a location on the same, or on a different side, from the old T target. Results suggested that there was no interference caused by the old T-target: target search was not affected by the relative positions of the T and Y. Instead, we found a general facilitation in search times for repeated configurations (Experiments 1 and 2). This main effect disappeared when the need for visual search was eliminated in Experiment 3 using a "feature search task". These results suggest that repeated sets of distractors did not trigger an uncontrollable response toward the position of the T; instead, CC was produced by perceptual learning processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

It is usually easier to find objects in a visual scene as we gain familiarity with it. Two decades of research on contextual cuing of visual search show that repeated exposure to a search display can facilitate the detection of targets that appear at predictable locations in that display. Typical accounts for this effect attribute an essential role to learned associations between the target and other stimuli in the search display. These associations improve visual search either by driving attention towards the usual location of the target or by facilitating its recognition. Contrary to this view, we show that a robust contextual cuing effect can also be observed when repeated search displays do not allow the location of the target to be predicted. These results suggest that, in addition to the mechanisms already explored by previous research, participants learn to ignore the locations usually occupied by distractors, which in turn facilitates the detection of targets even when they appear in unpredictable locations.

It is well established that associative learning, such as learning new cue-outcome pairings, produces changes in attention: cues that are good predictors of relevant outcomes become prioritised compared with those that are non-predictive or redundant. However, there is controversy about whether such a learnt attentional bias results from a controlled orientation of attention, or whether it can be involuntary in nature. In three experiments, participants learned that cues of certain colours were predictive or non-predictive, and we assessed attention to cues using a dot-probe task. On dot-probe trials, participants were instructed to control attention by orienting towards a cue of a certain shape (target), while trying to ignore another cue (distractor). Although the colours of the cues were critical for the associative learning task, they were irrelevant for the dot-probe task. The results show that, even though participants' controlled attention was focused on the target shape (as evident in response times and accuracy data), response times to the probe were slower (Experiments 1 and 2) and error rates were higher (Experiments 2 and 3) when the distractor was of a (previously) predictive colour. These data suggest that attention was captured involuntarily by the predictive value of the distractor, despite this being counterproductive to the task goal.

Polymorphous concepts are hard to learn, and this is perhaps surprising because they, like many natural concepts, have an overall similarity structure. However, the dimensional summation hypothesis (Milton & Wills, 2004) predicts this difficulty. It also makes a number of other predictions about polymorphous concept formation, which are tested here. In Experiment 1 we confirm the theory's prediction that polymorphous concept formation should be facilitated by deterministic pretraining on the constituent features of the stimulus. This facilitation is relative to an equivalent amount of training on the polymorphous concept itself. In Experiments 2--4, the dimensional summation account of this single feature pretraining effect is contrasted with some other accounts, including a more general strategic account (Experiment 2), seriality of training and stimulus decomposition accounts (Experiment 3), and the role of errors (Experiment 4). The dimensional summation hypothesis provides the best account of these data. In Experiment 5, a further prediction is confirmed --- the single feature pretraining effect is eliminated by a concurrent counting task. The current experiments suggest the hypothesis that natural concepts might be acquired by the deliberate serial summation of evidence. This idea has testable implications for classroom learning.

Eye tracking tools are now commonplace in the laboratories of experimental psychologists. Recording the position of a person's gaze, often several hundred times per second, can provide rich and precise data on the mechanisms and time course of cognitive processing. This approach has transformed cognitive psychology from the fields of language processing and reading, to categorization, cognitive development, and many more. In this chapter we discuss briefly the history of eye tracking research, when the technology is likely to benefit researchers, and the types of advantages it offers over traditional behavioral measures. We then present a selective review of areas of behavioral research in which eye tracking has had a significant impact, before providing a more detailed discussion of its use within the field of associative learning and attention.

Several attention-based models of associative learning are built upon the learned predictiveness principle, whereby learning is optimized by attending to the most predictive features and ignoring the least predictive features. Despite their functional similarity, these models differ in their formal mechanisms and thus may produce very different predictions in some circumstances. As we demonstrate, this is particularly evident in the inverse base-rate effect. Using simulations with a modified Mackintosh model and the EXIT model, we found that models based on the learned predictiveness principle can account for rare-outcome choice biases associated with the inverse base-rate effect, despite making opposite predictions for relative attention to rare versus common predictors. The models also make different predictions regarding changes in attention across training, and effects of context associations on attention to cues. Using a human causal learning task, we replicated the inverse base-rate effect and a recently reported reduction in this effect when the context is not predictive of the common outcome and used eye-tracking to test model predictions about changes in attention both prior to making a decision, and during feedback. The results support the predictions made by EXIT, where the rare predictor commands greater attention than the common predictor throughout training. In addition, patterns of attention prior to making a decision differed to those during feedback, where effects of using a partially predictive context were evident only prior to making a prediction.