False contingency knowledge reverses the color–word contingency learning effect.

In learning research, there is an ongoing debate about the role of awareness in human contingency learning. While a large part of the contingency learning (CL) effect actually reflects episodic retrieval of previous responses (C. G. Giesen et al., 2020; Schmidt et al., 2020), a significant residual CL effect remains, which reflects a genuine impact of global contingencies on behavior (Rudolph & Rothermund, 2024; Xu & Mordkoff, 2020). In a highly powered (N = 120) preregistered study, we tested the influence of contingency awareness on the genuine CL effect by giving true or false instructions about the existing color-word contingencies. We found that the genuine CL effect is modulated by awareness, as true (false) instructions amplified (reduced) the residual CL effect (see also Schmidt & De Houwer, 2012). Further, participants who maintained the belief in the falsely instructed contingencies until the end of the experiment actually showed a reversed genuine CL effect, characterized by faster responses in low contingency trials that corresponded to the falsely instructed color-word combination. In sum, our findings suggest that genuine human CL, which is free from the influence of episodic retrieval, reflects propositional beliefs rather than association formation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).