Facilitation and Attenuation of Learning to Novel and Familiar Stimuli Through Contextual Mismatch: Experimental Evidence and a Computational Model
Abstract
Learning about the relationship between a stimulus and an outcome typically progresses more successfully when the stimulus is novel, compared to when it is familiar. This phenomenon, referred to as latent inhibition, is widespread across the animal kingdom and continues to motivate the development of theories of learning. Recently, Haselgrove et al. (2025) reported a series of experiments that revealed conditions under which this influential phenomenon could be reversed. They demonstrated, using pseudoword stimuli, that successful associative learning about a novel or a familiar stimulus was a function of the mismatch between the novelty of the stimulus and the context in which is trained. Thus, in a context that sustains novelty, learning about a stimulus-outcome relation progressed more successfully to a familiar stimulus than a novel stimulus (reversed latent inhibition). Here we report three experiments that reproduce and extend the generality of these findings. We show that the effect can be obtained with images as stimuli, and when participants are equated for the effects of cognitive load during familiarization. To explain these results, we propose that novelty and familiarity are stimulus elements that can compete for associative strength alongside the elements of a stimulus that are activated by its physical characteristics (e.g. its colour, saturation, etc.). We then describe a simple computational model that serves as proof of this concept, and which reveals that latent inhibition, and its reversal, can be simulated without appeals being made to learned variations in attention or memory/response interference.
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BibTeX
@misc{shi2026facilitation,
title = {{Facilitation and Attenuation of Learning to Novel and Familiar Stimuli Through Contextual Mismatch: Experimental Evidence and a Computational Model}},
author = {Jialin Shi and Mark Haselgrove},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/gxy6q_v1},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/gxy6q_v1/},
note = {CC0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Facilitation and Attenuation of Learning to Novel and Familiar Stimuli Through Contextual Mismatch: Experimental Evidence and a Computational Model
AU - Jialin Shi
AU - Mark Haselgrove
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/27
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/gxy6q_v1
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/gxy6q_v1/
AB - Learning about the relationship between a stimulus and an outcome typically progresses more successfully when the stimulus is novel, compared to when it is familiar. This phenomenon, referred to as latent inhibition, is widespread across the animal kingdom and continues to motivate the development of theories of learning. Recently, Haselgrove et al. (2025) reported a series of experiments that revealed conditions under which this influential phenomenon could be reversed. They demonstrated, using pseudoword stimuli, that successful associative learning about a novel or a familiar stimulus was a function of the mismatch between the novelty of the stimulus and the context in which is trained. Thus, in a context that sustains novelty, learning about a stimulus-outcome relation progressed more successfully to a familiar stimulus than a novel stimulus (reversed latent inhibition). Here we report three experiments that reproduce and extend the generality of these findings. We show that the effect can be obtained with images as stimuli, and when participants are equated for the effects of cognitive load during familiarization. To explain these results, we propose that novelty and familiarity are stimulus elements that can compete for associative strength alongside the elements of a stimulus that are activated by its physical characteristics (e.g. its colour, saturation, etc.). We then describe a simple computational model that serves as proof of this concept, and which reveals that latent inhibition, and its reversal, can be simulated without appeals being made to learned variations in attention or memory/response interference.
ER -