Response selection difficulty modulates the behavioral impact of rapidly learnt action effects.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Action effect learning occurs readily in free-choice intentional modes.
• The influence of action effect associations in forced-choice modes, particularly under stimulus-response (S-R) rules, remains less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how response selection difficulty, imposed by S-R rules, affects the initial learning and behavioral expression of action effect associations.
• To determine if and when these associations impact behavior in forced-choice scenarios.

Main Methods:

• Participants acted under forced-choice conditions with varying S-R rules and response selection difficulty.
• Action effect associations were initially learned and then re-activated through effect exposure.
• Behavioral responses were analyzed to assess the influence of learned associations.

Main Results:

• Initial rapid learning of action effect associations was not directly affected by response selection difficulty.
• Behavioral expression of re-activated associations was inhibited under low response selection difficulty (over-learnt cues).
• Sufficiently high response selection difficulty enabled action effect associations to influence behavior, indicating competition during response selection rather than just priming.

Conclusions:

• Response selection difficulty modulates the behavioral expression of action effect associations.
• High response selection difficulty is crucial for action effect associations to influence behavior, especially following multiple rapid learning episodes.
• Difficulty may induce different strategies, impacting how learning episodes affect action effect expression and learning.