Four experiments are reported that investigate the relationship between action–outcome learning and the ability to ignore distractors. Each participant performed 600 acquisition trials, followed by 200 test trials. In the acquisition phase, participants were presented with a fixed action–outcome contingency (e.g., Key #1 ➔ green distractors), while that contingency was reversed in the test phase. In Experiments 1–3, a distractor feature depended on the participants’ action. In Experiment 1, actions determined the color of the distractors; in Experiment 2, they determined the target–distractor distance; in Experiment 3, they determined target–distractor compatibility. Results suggest that with the relatively simple features (color and distance), exposure to action–outcome contingencies changed distractor cost, whereas with the complex or relational feature (target–distractor compatibility), exposure to the contingencies did not affect distractor cost. In Experiment 4, the same pattern of results was found (effect of contingency learning on distractor cost) with perceptual sequence learning, using visual cues (“X” vs. “O”) instead of actions. Thus, although the mechanism of associative learning may not be unique to actions, such learning plays a role in the allocation of attention to task-irrelevant events.

据报道，有四个实验研究了行动成果学习与忽略干扰因素之间的关系。每个参与者进行了600项获取测试，然后进行了200项测试。在习得阶段，向参与者展示了固定的行动-结果偶然性（例如，关键＃1➔绿色干扰物），而该偶然性在测试阶段中被逆转了。在实验1-3中，干扰因素取决于参与者的动作。在实验1中，动作确定了干扰项的颜色；在实验2中，他们确定了目标-牵开器的距离；在实验3中，他们确定了目标与干扰物的相容性。结果表明，使用相对简单的功能（颜色和距离），暴露于行动结果偶然性会改变分散注意力的成本，而由于具有复杂或相关的特征（目标-干扰因素兼容性），因此意外事件的暴露不会影响干扰因素的成本。在实验4中，使用视觉线索（“ X”与“ v”对比）发现了与感知序列学习相同的结果模式（应急学习对干扰物成本的影响）。“ O”）代替行动。因此，尽管联想学习的机制可能不是动作所独有的，但这种学习在对与任务无关的事件的注意力分配中起着作用。