Profiles
Professor Christopher Mitchell
Professor in Psychology
School of Psychology (Faculty of Health)
Biography
Biography
I am a cognitive psychologist working in the areas of learning, memory and attention. My main research focus has been on the role of high-level cognitive processes in human associative learning. I have also published on perceptual learning and liking.
Qualifications
I obtained my BSc and PhD in psychology from University College London (1987-1995). I then worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at UCL (1995-97) and a consumer scientist at Unilever Research, Portsunlight (1998-2000). A significant portion of my career was spent in beautiful New South Wales, Australia as a post-doc and then a member of staff at UNSW (2002-2011). I then returned to beautiful Devon and joined the School of Psychology in Plymouth in 2011.
Teaching
Teaching
Teaching interests
I teach on a range of topics related to learning, including Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning, the role of controlled processes in learning, and the way learning affects health. I also teach meditation.
Research
Research
Research interests
I have a range of projects related to associative learning:
1) Pavlovian-instrumental conditioning
2) Associative processes in Test-potentiated learning (TPL)
3) Conditioned inhibition
4) The role of uncertainty in associative learning
I also supervise two PhD students looking at:
1) Imagery and action
2) The effects of meditation on attentional processes
Research groups
Publications
Publications
Key publications
Key publications are highlighted
Journals
Articles
(2023) 'Action Slips in Food Choices: A Measure of Habits and Goal-Directed Control' Learning & Behavior , DOI Open access
(2022) 'Pre-testing Effects Are Target-Specific and Are Not Driven by a Generalised State of Curiosity' Memory , DOI Open access
(2022) 'Theory protection: do humans protect existing associative links?' Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition 48, (1) 1-16 , DOI Open access
(2021) 'The Benefits of Impossible Tests: Assessing the Role of Error-Correction in the Pretesting Effect' Memory and Cognition , DOI Open access
(2021) 'Similarities and differences: Comment on Chan et al' Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition , DOI Open access
(2020) 'Pretesting boosts recognition, but not cued recall, of targets from unrelated word pairs' Psychonomic Bulletin and Review , DOI Open access
(2019) 'Human appetitive Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer: a goal-directed account' Psychological Research 85, (2) 449-463 , DOI
(2019) 'Theory protection in associative learning: humans maintain certain beliefs in a manner that violates prediction error' Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition , DOI Open access
(2019) 'Selective effects of errorful generation on recognition memory: The role of motivation and surprise' Memory , DOI Open access
(2019) 'Goal-directed control in Pavlovian-instrumental transfer' Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition 45, (1) 95-101 , DOI Open access
(2019) 'Uncertainty and blocking in human causal learning' Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition 45, (1) , DOI Open access
(2018) 'Learning from failure: Errorful generation improves memory for items, not associations' Journal of Memory and Language 104, 70-82 , DOI Open access
(2018) 'Automaticity and cognitive control: Effects of cognitive load on cue-controlled reward choice' Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology , DOI Open access
(2018) 'Intention insertion: Activating an action's perceptual consequences is sufficient to induce non-willed motor behavior' Journal of Experimental Psychology: General , DOI Open access
(2018) 'Extinguishing cue-controlled reward choice: Effects of Pavlovian extinction on outcome-selective Pavlovian-instrumental transfer' Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition 44, (3) Open access
(2018) 'Testing for Depressive Realism in a Clinically Depressed Sample' Behaviour Change 35, (2) 108-122 , DOI
(2017) 'Creativity and Blocking: No Evidence for an Association' AVANT. The Journal of the Philosophical-Interdisciplinary Vanguard VIII, (Special) 135-146 , DOI Open access
(2017) 'Evidence of a Goal-Directed Process in Human Pavlovian-Instrumental Transfer' Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition 43, (4) , DOI Open access
(2017) 'Drug cue reactivity involves hierarchical instrumental learning: evidence from a biconditional Pavlovian to instrumental transfer task' Psychopharmacology 234, (13) 1977-1984 , DOI Open access
(2016) 'Attention and associative learning in humans: An integrative review' Psychological Bulletin , DOI Open access
(2016) 'The propositional basis of cue-controlled reward seeking' The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 69, (12) 2452-2470 , DOI Open access
(2016) 'Multiple context mere exposure: Examining the limits of liking' Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 69, (3) 521-534 , DOI
(2015) 'Outcome predictability biases learning' J Exp Psychol Anim Learn Cogn 41, (1) 1-17 , DOI Open access
(2013) 'Contingency bias in probability judgement may arise from ambiguity regarding additional causes' Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 66, (9) 1675-1686 , DOI
(2013) 'Can Theories of Animal Discrimination Explain Perceptual Learning in Humans?' Psychological Bulletin 140, (1) 283-307 , DOI Open access
(2013) 'Competition between an avoidance response and a safety signal: evidence for a single learning system' Biol Psychol 92, (1) 9-16 , DOI
(2013) 'Eliminating the mere exposure effect through changes in context between exposure and test' Cogn Emot 27, (8) 1345-1358 , DOI
(2013) 'Outcome value influences attentional biases in human associative learning: dissociable effects of training and instruction' J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process 39, (1) 39-55 , DOI
(2012) 'Location and salience of unique features in human perceptual learning' J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process 38, (4) 407-418 , DOI
(2012) 'Attentional mechanisms in learned predictiveness' J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process 38, (2) 191-202 , DOI
(2012) 'Effects of exposure on discrimination of similar stimuli and on memory for their unique and common features' Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 65, (6) 1123-1138 , DOI
(2012) 'Both trace and delay conditioned eyeblink responding can be dissociated from outcome expectancy' Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 38, (1) 1-10 , DOI
(2011) 'Discriminating between the Effects of Valence and Salience in the Implicit Association Test' Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 64, (11) 2251-2275 , DOI
(2011) 'Attention and relative novelty in human perceptual learning' J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process 37, (4) 436-445 , DOI
(2011) 'Awareness is necessary for differential trace and delay eyeblink conditioning in humans' Biol Psychol 87, (3) 393-400 , DOI
(2011) 'Memory for, and salience of, the unique features in perceptual learning' Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 37, 211-219
(2011) 'Memory for, and salience of, the unique features of similar stimuli in perceptual learning' J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process 37, (2) 211-219 , DOI
(2010) 'Do reaction times in the Perruchet effect reflect variations in the strength of an associative link?' J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 36, (2) 567-572 , DOI
(2010) 'Quantitation of Microcomputed Tomography-Imaged Ocular Microvasculature' Microcirculation 17, (1) 59-68 , DOI
(2009) 'Missing the target: A reply to Koehler & Macchi (2009)' Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 22, (5) 528-532 , DOI
(2009) 'Processing fluency as a predictor of salience asymmetries in the Implicit Association Test' Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 62, (10) 2030-2054 , DOI
(2009) 'Safety behaviours preserve threat beliefs: Protection from extinction of human fear conditioning by an avoidance response' Behav Res Ther 47, (8) 716-720 , DOI
(2009) 'Human and animal perceptual learning: some common and some unique features' Learn Behav 37, (2) 154-160 , DOI
(2009) 'The propositional nature of human associative learning' Behav Brain Sci 32, (2) 183-198 , DOI
(2009) 'Is Perruchet's dissociation between eyeblink conditioned responding and outcome expectancy evidence for two learning systems?' J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process 35, (2) 169-176 , DOI
(2009) 'Link-based learning theory creates more problems than it solves' Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32, (2) 230-246 , DOI
(2008) 'Selective attention in human associative learning and recognition memory' J Exp Psychol Gen 137, (4) 626-648 , DOI
(2008) 'Analysis of the role of associative inhibition in perceptual learning by means of the same-different task' J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process 34, (4) 475-485 , DOI
(2008) 'Changes in cue associability across training in human causal learning' J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process 34, (4) 423-436 , DOI
(2008) 'Evidence for expectancy as a mediator of avoidance and anxiety in a laboratory model of human avoidance learning' Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 61, (8) 1199-1216 , DOI
(2008) 'Getting scarred and winning lotteries: effects of exemplar cuing and statistical format on imagining low‐probability events' Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 21, (3) 317-335 , DOI
(2008) 'The intermixed-blocked effect in human perceptual learning is not the consequence of trial spacing' J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 34, (1) 237-242 , DOI
(2007) 'The mere acceptance effect: Can it influence responses on racial Implicit Association Tests?' Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43, (5) 787-793 , DOI
(2007) 'A dissociation between causal judgement and the ease with which a cause is categorized with its effect' Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 60, (3) 400-417 , DOI
(2006) 'Effects of preexposure on stimulus discrimination: an investigation of the mechanisms responsible for human perceptual learning' Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 59, (12) 2083-2101 , DOI
(2006) 'Forward blocking in human learning sometimes reflects the failure to encode a cue-outcome relationship' Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 59, (5) 830-844 , DOI
(2005) 'A dissociation between causal judgment and outcome recall' Psychon Bull Rev 12, (5) 950-954 , DOI
(2005) 'Inference-based retrospective revaluation in human causal judgments requires knowledge of within-compound relationships' J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process 31, (4) 418-424 , DOI
(2005) 'Acquired distinctiveness and equivalence in human discrimination learning: Evidence for an attentional process' Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 12, (1) 88-92 , DOI
(2005) 'Evidence for deductive reasoning in blocking of causal judgments' Learning and Motivation 36, (1) 77-87 , DOI
(2004) 'Mere acceptance produces apparent attitude in the Implicit Association Test' Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 40, (3) 366-373 , DOI
(2003) 'Measuring evaluative conditioning using the Implicit Association Test' Learning and Motivation 34, (2) 203-217 , DOI
(2003) 'Acquired equivalence and distinctiveness in human discrimination learning: Evidence for associative mediation' Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 132, (2) 266-276 , DOI
(2003) 'Forward and backward blocking of causal judgment is enhanced by additivity of effect magnitude' Mem Cognit 31, (1) 133-142 , DOI
(2002) 'Backward and forward blocking in human electrodermal conditioning: blocking requires an assumption of outcome additivity' Q J Exp Psychol B 55, (4) 311-329 , DOI
(2000) 'Stimulus Enhancement: Controls for Social Facilitation and Local Enhancement' Learning and Motivation 31, (2) 83-98 , DOI
(1999) 'Limitations of a bidirectional control procedure for the investigation of imitation in rats: Odour cues on the Manipulandum' Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section B: Comparative and Physiological Psychology 52, (3) 193-202
(1998) 'Limitations of a Bidirectional Control Procedure for the Investigation of Imitation in Rats: Odour Cues on the Manipulandum' Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 52, (3b) 193-202 , DOI
(1996) 'Intrinsic reinforcing properties of putatively neutral stimuli in an instrumental two-lever discrimination task' Animal Learning & Behavior 24, (1) 38-45 , DOI
(1996) 'Simultaneous Overshadowing and Potentiation of Taste and Contextual Cues by a Second Taste in Toxicosis Conditioning' Learning and Motivation 27, (1) 58-72 , DOI
Books
(2010) Attention and Associative Learning From Brain to Behaviour. Oxford University Press, USA
Chapters
(2008) 'How hypnosis happens: new cognitive theories of hypnotic responding' Oxford University Press , DOI