Stimulus-response binding and retrieval (SRBR) is a fundamental mechanism driving behavior automatization. In five experiments, we investigated the modulatory role of affective consequences (AC) on SRBR effects to test whether binding/retrieval can explain instrumental learning (i.e., the "law of effect"). SRBR effects were assessed in a…

People consider alternative causes when deciding whether a cause is responsible for an effect (diagnostic inference) but appear to neglect them when deciding whether an effect will occur (predictive inference). Five experiments were conducted to test a 2-part explanation of this phenomenon: namely, (a) that people interpret standard predictive…

In simple mechanical events, we can directly perceive causal interactions of the physical objects. Physical cues (especially spatiotemporal features of the display) are found to associate with causal perception. Here, we demonstrate that cues of a completely different domain--"social cues"--also impact the causal perception of…

This research investigated whether people are more likely to attribute events to external agents when events are negative rather than neutral or positive. Participants more often believed that ultimatum game partners were humans rather than computers when the partners offered unusually unfavorable divisions than unusually favorable divisions…

When do we accept another's opinion regarding the characteristics or beliefs of a target person, and when do we reject that opinion? Different sorts of information may need to be assimilated by the perceiver. When does one type of information take priority over the other? A central focus of attribution research has been on the informational value…

This study (N=160 males) examined the cognitive and behavioral effects of overt success feedback on subjects high and low in resultant achievement motivation (RAM). The cognitive effects of overt success feedback were investigated by requesting attributions to effort, ability, luck, and task difficulty concerning performance on a digit-symbol…