Savings in relearning: II. On the formation of behavior-based trait associations and inferences

Five experiments based on Carlston and Skowronski's (1994) relearning paradigm suggest that people spontaneously derive trait knowledge about actors from behaviors but that this knowledge may reflect either explicit trait inference processes or implicit actor-trait associations. Experiments 1 and 2 found that inference-instructed and control Ss showed equivalent savings in subsequent efforts to learn actor-trait pairs but not when instructed Ss initially inferred the wrong trait. Experiment 3 showed that savings were equivalent for stimuli from different sources, and Experiment 4 showed that savings effects persisted even when the target was only incidentally associated with a stimulus behavior. Finally, Experiment 5 suggests that after several days, even explicit trait inferences can become inaccessible to intentional retrieval, although the earlier experiments show that they continue to exert an implicit effect on learning.