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Updated: Apr 11, 2026

Irrelevant Stimuli and Action Control: Analyzing the Influence of Ignored Stimuli via the Distractor-Response Binding Paradigm
Published on: May 14, 2014
Response-independent outcomes impact response rates and judgments of control differentially depending on rate of
1Department of Psychology, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP, UK, p.reed@swansea.ac.uk.
Abstract:
Two experiments examined the impact of response-independent outcome delivery on human rates of response and judgments of control in an instrumental conditioning task. In Experiment 1, when participants responded on a schedule with a relatively high probability of a response producing an outcome, a random ratio (RR-5), judgments of control declined as rates of response-independent outcomes increased. However, when response-dependent outcomes were delivered with a relatively low probability (RR-15), increasing the rate of response-independent outcomes increased rates of response and judgments of control. Experiment 2 replicated this effect, but also noted a differential effect of response-independent outcome and response-independent sensory presentations on response rate and judgments of causal effectiveness. Ratings of the context in which the conditioning occurred suggested these were correlated with total outcome presentation, and that the role of context on response rate and judgments of control may be important to consider.
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