This meeting was part of the Attention & Performance meetings that started in 1966. This 27th meeting took place during the 9th-12th of June ’16 in “Priorij Corsendonck” (Oud-Turnhout, Belgium). The organizing committee consisted of Marcel Brass, Jan De Houwer, Christian Büchel, Senne Braem and Baptist Liefooghe.
The theme of the meeting concerned the implications and applications of learning via instructions:
Unlike other animals, humans have the unique ability to share and use verbal instructions to prepare for upcoming tasks. For example, using language we can learn without trial and error the route to a new city, how to build a cabinet, or how to prepare a meal. Furthermore, instructions also indirectly influence our behaviour. For example, knowledge about the efficiency of a medical treatment can change the effects of this treatment. Although verbal instructions are omnipresent in daily life and psychological research, the mechanisms via which they influence behaviour are still poorly understood. In this meeting, we bring together different experts from a variety of disciplines, from fear conditioning to cognitive control, using different manipulations, from stimulus-response instructions to hypnotic suggestions, to study the omnipresent effect of verbal instructions on brain and behaviour.
