From competition to facilitation: temporal contiguity determines interactions between events in human Action-Outcome performance

Three experiments (n=81, n=81, n=82 respectively) explored how temporal contiguity influences Action-Outcome learning, assessing whether an intervening signal competed, facilitated, or had no effect on performance and causal attribution in undergraduate participants. Across experiments, we observed competition and facilitation as a function of the temporal contiguity between Action and Outcome. When there was a strong temporal relationship between Action and Outcome, the signal competed with the action, hindering instrumental performance but not causal attribution (Experiments 1 and 3). However, with weak temporal contiguity, the same signal facilitated both instrumental performance and causal attribution (Experiments 1 and 2). Finally, the physical intensity of the signal determined the magnitude of competition. As anticipated by associative learning models, a more salient signal disrupted to a greater extent instrumental performance (Experiment 3). The current results can be accounted for by a recent adaptation of configural theory of learning (Herrera et al., 2021).

三项实验（每组被试量依次为n=81、n=81、n=82）探究了时间连续性（temporal contiguity）对动作-结果学习（Action-Outcome learning）的影响，旨在考察介入信号（intervening signal）会对本科生被试的操作表现与因果归因（causal attribution）产生竞争效应、促进效应还是无影响。所有实验均发现，竞争与促进效应的出现取决于动作与结果间的时间连续性强度。当动作与结果间存在强时间关联时，介入信号会与动作产生竞争，抑制工具性操作表现（instrumental performance）但不影响因果归因（实验1与实验3）。但当时间连续性较弱时，同一介入信号则会同时促进工具性操作表现与因果归因（实验1与实验2）。最后，介入信号的物理强度决定了竞争效应的大小。正如联想学习模型（associative learning models）所预期的那样，显著性更强的信号会对工具性操作表现产生更显著的干扰（实验3）。本研究结果可通过近期修订的学习构型理论（configural theory of learning）予以解释（Herrera等人，2021）。