Incidental binding between predictive relations

Knowledge of predictive relations is a core aspect of learning. Beyond individual relations, we also represent intuitive theories of the world, which include interrelated sets of relations. We asked whether individual predictive relations learned incidentally in the same context become associatively bound and whether they spontaneously influence later learning. Participants performed a cover task while watching three sequences of events. Each sequence contained the same set of events, but differed in how the events related to each other. The first two sequences each had two strong predictive relations (R1 & R2, and R3 & R4). The third contained either a consistent pairing of relations (R1 & R2) or an inconsistent pairing (R1 & R3). We found that participants' learning of the individual relations in the third sequence was affected by pairing consistency, suggesting the mind associates relations to each other as part of the intrinsic way it learns about the world. This was despite participants' minimal ability to verbally describe most of the relations they had learned. Thus, participants spontaneously developed the expectation that pairs of relations should cohere, and this affected their ability to learn new evidence. Such associative binding of relational information may help us build intuitive theories.