Whether timing affects contingency learning is currently
poorly understood. Specifically, does temporal predictability
aid the acquisition of contingencies? We asked participants in
a music contingency learning task to respond to the target (the
name of a note) while ignoring tones. To assess whether
temporal predictability influences the acquisition of these
contingencies, we manipulated the temporal context of tone
presentation in two experiments. In Experiment 1, one group
of participants listened to tones presented with a regular
temporal interval (1000 ms between each trial), while the other
group listened to tones presented in a random manner (random
intervals selected between 600 and 1400 ms). In Experiment 2
we manipulated the temporal presentation of the tones within
trials: one group listened to tones with a 300 ms fixed interval
between the cue and the target, and the other group with an
interval randomly selected between 0 and 600 ms. Although
participants learned to associate pitch labels in both
experiments this occurred independently of the timing
manipulations. These results confirm prior evidence on
contingency learning but do not show the effects of temporal
predictability in this learning context.