When does binding become learning, if it ever does? How sequences of stimulus–response combinations affect episodic retrieval in a color-word repetition paradigm

Current theories about binding and learning claim that transient episodic bindings between stimulus and response features serve as the foundation for forming long-term stimulus-response (S-R) associations in memory. In two high-powered, pre-registered experiments (total N = 163), we observed that the stimulus-response binding and retrieval effect increased linearly with each additional episode contributing to the uninterrupted repetition of the same S-R combination. To examine whether this repeated exposure results in the formation of an abstract, stable, nonepisodic S-R association in long-term memory, we tested whether the influence of the uninterrupted series persists after a single intervening episode that contradicts the series. Our results show that the repetition effect does not modulate retrieval effects for S-R combinations that deviate from the series and thus does not survive a single mismatching episode, even after a large number (i.e., 10 or 11) of prior repetitions. Hence, the increased retrieval effect for long series of matching episodes does not reflect a transition from episodic retrieval to long-term learning but may instead reflect a higher probability of successfully retrieving a matching S-R episode from memory. In sum, we found no convincing evidence that pure S-R repetitions in and of themselves (independently of other processes like hypothesis testing or propositional reasoning) lead to the formation of a stable, abstract, nonepisodic representation (i.e., an association) that operates independently of binding and retrieval.