Predictive coding theories of autism suggest that symptoms could result from an atypical learning of expectations. We assessed whether adults with autism could learn expectations in an uncertain context. Twenty-nine neurotypicals and 25 autistic adults participated in an associative learning task. After hearing a tone, participants had to predict…

The ability to learn from expectations is foundational to social and nonsocial learning in children. However, we know little about the brain basis of reward expectation in development. Here, 3- to 4-year-olds (N = 26) were shown a passive associative learning paradigm with dynamic stimuli. Anticipation for reward-related stimuli was measured via…

The "Perruchet effect" refers to a dissociation between the conscious expectancy of an outcome and the strength or speed of responding in anticipation of that outcome. This dissociation is considered by some to be the best evidence for multiple learning processes with expectancy governed by participants' explicit beliefs and responding…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how associationism mistakenly assumes that direct experience is possible; that is, there is expectation-free observation and association without prior expectation. Thus, associationism assumes that learning involves the absorption of information from the environment itself. However, contrary…

After repeated associations between two events, E1 and E2, responses to E2 can be facilitated either because participants consciously expect E2 to occur after E1 or because E1 automatically activates the response to E2, or because of both. In this article, the authors report on 4 experiments designed to pit the influence of these 2 factors against…

Compared pharmacological and social-learning influences on development of alcohol-related expectancies. Investigated adolescents in transition from nondrinking to adult drinking practices. Six expectancy factors repeated across age groups: physical tension reduction, diversion from worry, increased interpersonal power, magical transformation of…

Two studies examined whether 1-year olds' name learning during joint attention was guided by expectation that names will be in the form of spoken words. Results showed that 13-month olds, but not 20-month olds, learned a new sound/object correspondence, as evidenced by their choosing targets reliably in responses to hearing the word or sound on…

This study examines the effect of expectation (children's judgments as to the probable actor within a given sentence) upon comprehension of passive sentences, the relationship of syntactic comprehension to the paradigmatic-syntagmatic shift in word associations, and the effect of sex on each. Forty first-graders and 40 kindergarteners were blocked…