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1. Attitudinal Effects of Stimulus Co-Occurrence and Stimulus Relations: Range and Limits of Intentional Control

   https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167220982906  

   Gawronski, Bertram; Brannon, Skylar M. (December 2021, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin)

   Research suggests that evaluations of an object can be simultaneously influenced by (a) the mere co-occurrence of the object with a pleasant or unpleasant stimulus (e.g., mere co-occurrence of object A and negative event B) and (b) the object’s particular relation to the co-occurring stimulus (e.g., object A starts vs. stops negative event B). Using a multinomial modeling approach to disentangle the two kinds of influences on choice decisions, three experiments investigated whether learners can intentionally control the relative impact of stimulus co-occurrence and stimulus relations. An integrative analysis of the data from the three experiments ( N = 1,154) indicate that incentivized instructions to counteract effects of stimulus co-occurrence by focusing on stimulus relations increased the impact of stimulus relations without affecting the impact of stimulus co-occurrence. Implications for evaluative learning, intentional control, and public policy are discussed. 

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2. Attitudinal Effects of Stimulus Co-occurrence and Stimulus Relations: Sleep Supports Propositional Learning Via Memory Consolidation

   https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506211067673  

   Jin, Rui; Xia, Tao; Gawronski, Bertram; Hu, Xiaoqing (February 2022, Social Psychological and Personality Science)

   Adaptive behavior requires that organisms learn not only which stimuli tend to co-occur (e.g., whether stimulus A co-occurs with unpleasant stimulus B) but also how co-occurring stimuli are related (e.g., whether A starts or stops B). In a preregistered study ( N = 200 adults), we investigated whether sleep would promote adaptive evaluative choices requiring joint memories for stimulus co-occurrences and stimulus relations. Participants learned about hypothetical pharmaceutical products that either cause or prevent positive or negative health conditions, followed by measures of evaluative choices and explicit memory. After a 12-hr retention interval including either nocturnal sleep or daytime wake, participants completed the same measures a second time. Results showed that sleep strengthened the impact of causal product–condition relations on choices (revealed by multinomial modeling analyses) and enhanced memories for specific stimulus co-occurrences (revealed by memory preservation analyses). The findings suggest that sleep promotes adaptive evaluative choices via offline memory consolidation. 

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3. Co-Occurrence and Relational Information in Evaluative Learning: A Multinomial Modeling Approach

   https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1037/xge0000620  

   Heycke, Tobias; Gawronski, Bertram (January 2020, Journal of experimental psychology)

   Dual-process theories of evaluative learning suggest that evaluative representations can be formed via two functionally distinct mechanisms: automatic formation of associative links between co-occurring events (associative learning) and non-automatic generation and truth assessment of mental propositions about the relation between stimuli (propositional learning). Single-process propositional theories reject the idea of automatic association formation, attributing all instances of evaluative learning to propositional processes. A central question in the debate between the two theories concerns the mechanisms underlying unqualified effects of stimulus co-occurrence when the relation between the co-occurring stimuli suggests an evaluation that is opposite to the one implied by the observed co-occurrence (e.g., sunscreen prevents skin cancer). Addressing interpretational ambiguities in previous research on the differential impact of co-occurrence and relational information on implicit and explicit measures, the current research used a multinomial modeling approach to investigate the functional properties of the effects of co-occurrence and relational information on a single measure of evaluative responses. Although the moderating effects obtained for relational information are consistent with the predictions of the two theories, the obtained properties of co-occurrence effects pose an explanatory challenge to both dual-process and single-process propositional theories. The findings demonstrate the value of multinomial modeling in providing deeper insights into the functional properties of the effects of co-occurrence and relational information, which impose stronger empirical constraints on extant theories of evaluative learning. 

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4. Psychology of cleansing through the prism of intersecting object histories

   https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x20000552  

   Ekves, Zachary; Prystauka, Yanina; Davis, Charles P.; Yee, Eiling; Altmann, Gerry T. (January 2021, Behavioral and Brain Sciences)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract We link cleansing effects to contemporary cognitive theories via an account of event representation (intersecting object histories) that provides an explicit, neurally plausible mechanism for encoding objects (e.g., the self) and their associations (with other entities) across time. It explains separation as resulting from weakening associations between the self in the present and the self in the past. 

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5. Neural Index of Reinforcement Learning Predicts Improved Stimulus–Response Retention under High Working Memory Load

   https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.1274-22.2023  

   Rac-Lubashevsky, Rachel; Cremer, Anna; Collins, Anne G.E.; Frank, Michael J.; Schwabe, Lars (April 2023, The Journal of Neuroscience)

   Human learning and decision-making are supported by multiple systems operating in parallel. Recent studies isolating the contributions of reinforcement learning (RL) and working memory (WM) have revealed a trade-off between the two. An interactive WM/RL computational model predicts that although high WM load slows behavioral acquisition, it also induces larger prediction errors in the RL system that enhance robustness and retention of learned behaviors. Here, we tested this account by parametrically manipulating WM load during RL in conjunction with EEG in both male and female participants and administered two surprise memory tests. We further leveraged single-trial decoding of EEG signatures of RL and WM to determine whether their interaction predicted robust retention. Consistent with the model, behavioral learning was slower for associations acquired under higher load but showed parametrically improved future retention. This paradoxical result was mirrored by EEG indices of RL, which were strengthened under higher WM loads and predictive of more robust future behavioral retention of learned stimulus–response contingencies. We further tested whether stress alters the ability to shift between the two systems strategically to maximize immediate learning versus retention of information and found that induced stress had only a limited effect on this trade-off. The present results offer a deeper understanding of the cooperative interaction between WM and RL and show that relying on WM can benefit the rapid acquisition of choice behavior during learning but impairs retention. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Successful learning is achieved by the joint contribution of the dopaminergic RL system and WM. The cooperative WM/RL model was productive in improving our understanding of the interplay between the two systems during learning, demonstrating that reliance on RL computations is modulated by WM load. However, the role of WM/RL systems in the retention of learned stimulus–response associations remained unestablished. Our results show that increased neural signatures of learning, indicative of greater RL computation, under high WM load also predicted better stimulus–response retention. This result supports a trade-off between the two systems, where degraded WM increases RL processing, which improves retention. Notably, we show that this cooperative interplay remains largely unaffected by acute stress. 

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