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Two experiments are reported that demonstrate rate of learning in an allergy prediction task can b e a ffected b y the predictive history of the c ues involved, even if that history relates to ou tcomes different t o those being currently learned about. Predictive history is defined here as a cue’s prior status as either a good or a poor predictor of outcomes. Our r esults are problematic for commonly employed associative theories of human contingency learning but also p rovide e vidence for the sort of associability-change process envisaged by the Mackintosh (1975) theory.