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Conflicts between expected and actually performed behavior lead to verbal report of incidentally acquired sequential knowledge

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Abstract

According to the Unexpected-Event Hypothesis (UEH) (Frensch, Haider, Rünger, Neugebauer, Voigt & Werg, 2002), conflicts between expected and actually performed behaviors trigger attribution processes and ultimately lead to the ability to verbally report an incidentally experienced sequential regularity. In two experiments, we manipulated the likelihood that a specific conflict, a premature response, occurred in a sequential version of the Number Reduction Task (NRT). Experiment 1 demonstrated that a longer RSI leads to a larger number of premature responses and to more verbal report than a shorter RSI. However, this effect of the RSI on verbal report was removed when participants were discouraged from emitting premature responses. Experiment 2 revealed that artificially inducing premature responses leads to an increase in verbal report, but only when premature responses are introduced late in training. Overall, the findings strongly support the assumptions of the UEH.

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Notes

  1. The only reason for using this special kind of keyboard was that we needed to use it in Experiment 2.

  2. The difference between the locked and the unlocked RSI conditions was further supported by a significant four-way interaction with the factors RSI duration (250 vs. 500 ms), Type of RSI (unlocked vs. locked), Response Position, and Block; F(16,1968) = 4.66, MSE = 13340.40, P < 0.01.

  3. One might question our assumption that a relatively small number of experienced unexpected events might be capable of triggering attributional processes. However, from related research on typing, for instance, we know that a single typing error causing the next keystroke time to become lengthened by approximately 300 ms is sufficient to direct participants’ attention to the just typed word (Wilbert & Haider, submitted).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Hilde Haider

  2. Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany

    Peter A. Frensch

  3. Department of Psychology, Universität zu Köln, Gronewaldstrasse 2, 50931, Cologne, Germany

    Hilde Haider

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  1. Hilde Haider
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  2. Peter A. Frensch
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Correspondence to Hilde Haider.

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Haider, H., Frensch, P.A. Conflicts between expected and actually performed behavior lead to verbal report of incidentally acquired sequential knowledge. Psychological Research 73, 817–834 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-008-0199-6

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