Over the past decade, an increasing number of studies have shown that the performance of specific actions (e.g., approach and avoidance) in response to a stimulus can lead to changes in how that stimulus is evaluated. In contrast to the reigning idea that these effects are mediated by the automatic formation and activation of associations in memory, we describe an inferential account that specifies the inferences underlying the effects and how these inferences are formed. We draw on predictive processing theories to explain the basic processes underlying inferential reasoning and their main characteristics. Our inferential account accommodates past findings, is supported by new findings, and leads to novel predictions as well as concrete recommendations for how action performance can be used to influence real-world behavior.

在过去的十年中，越来越多的研究表明，针对刺激的特定动作（例如，方法和回避）的执行可能导致刺激评估的方式发生变化。与这些影响是由记忆中联想的自动形成和激活所介导的观念相反，我们描述了一个推理性帐户，该帐户指定了影响这些作用的推断以及如何形成这些推断。我们利用预测处理理论来解释推理推理的基本过程及其主要特征。我们的推论性描述可以容纳过去的发现，并得到新发现的支持，并得出新颖的预测以及有关如何使用行动绩效来影响现实世界行为的具体建议。