Contingency learning and unlearning in the blink of an eye: A resource dependent process

Recent studies show that when words are correlated with the colours they are printed in (e.g., MOVE is presented 75% of the time in blue), colour identification is faster when the word is presented in its correlated colour (MOVE in blue) than in an uncorrelated colour (MOVE in green). The present series of experiments explored the possible mechanisms involved in this colour-word contingency learning effect. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the effect is already present after 18 learning trials. During subsequent unlearning, the effect extinguished equally rapidly. Two reanalyses of data from Schmidt, Crump, Cheesman, and Besner (2007) ruled out an account of the effect in terms of stimulus repetitions. Experiment 2 demonstrated that participants who carry a memory load do not show a contingency effect, supporting the hypothesis that limited-capacity resources are required for learning. Experiment 3 demonstrated that memory resources are required for both storage and retrieval processes.