Research has shown that detecting and judging causal relationships requires associative learning and memory. Retrospective revaluation of causal cues requires associative memory (Aitken, Larkin, & Dickinson, 2001) to bind multiple cues together and use these associations to retrieve unseen cues for revaluation of their associative value. The difficulty that older adults experience with respect to retrospective revaluation could occur because of their deficit in associative binding and retrieval (Mutter, Atchley, & Plumlee, 2012). Like retrospective revaluation, blocking requires cue – outcome associative learning, but unlike retrospective revaluation, blocking does not require binding two cues together nor does it require using the resulting association between these cues for retrieval. Older adults display no deficit in blocking (Hannah, Allan, & Young, 2012; Holder & Mutter, in submission). To assess the effects of aging on associative learning and memory in causal judgment, this study examined age effects in retrospective revaluation and blocking using an allergy scenario in a streamed-trial task (Hannah, Crump, Allan, & Siegel, 2009; Hannah et al., 2012). This study found that older and younger adults both displayed blocking effects, which supports past research. Additionally, it was found that older and younger adults displayed retrospective revaluation in working memory. The ability for older adults to display retrospective revaluation in working memory is a new finding. It suggests that there may be a decrement in associative long-term memory, but associative processes in working memory may be intact.

Retrospective revaluation— learning about implied but unpresented cues— poses one of the greatest challenges to classical learning theories. Whereas theorists have revised their models to accommodate revaluation, the empirical reliability of the phenomenon remains contentious. I present two sets of experiments that examine revaluative learning under different but analogous experimental protocols. Results provided mixed empirical evidence that is difficult to interpret in isolation. To address the issue, I apply two computational models to the experiments. An instance-based model of associative learning (Jamieson et al., 2012) predicts retrospective revaluation and anticipates participant behaviour in one set of experiments. An updated classical learning model (Ghirlanda, 2005) fails to predict retrospective revaluation, but anticipates participant behaviour in the other set of experiments. I argue that retrospective revaluation emerges as a corollary of basic memorial processes and discuss the empirical and theoretical implications.

Retrospective revaluation— learning about implied but unpresented cues— poses one of the greatest challenges to classical learning theories. Whereas theorists have revised their models to accommodate revaluation, the empirical reliability of the phenomenon remains contentious. I present two sets of experiments that examine revaluative learning under different but analogous experimental protocols. Results provided mixed empirical evidence that is difficult to interpret in isolation. To address the issue, I apply two computational models to the experiments. An instance-based model of associative learning (Jamieson et al., 2012) predicts retrospective revaluation and anticipates participant behaviour in one set of experiments. An updated classical learning model (Ghirlanda, 2005) fails to predict retrospective revaluation, but anticipates participant behaviour in the other set of experiments. I argue that retrospective revaluation emerges as a corollary of basic memorial processes and discuss the empirical and theoretical implications.