People want to see information that will help them make valid inferences in human causal learning.
According to higher order reasoning accounts of human causal learning (e.g., Lovibond, Been, Mitchell, Bouton, and Frohardt, 2003; Waldmann and Walker, 2005) ceiling effects in forward blocking (i.e., smaller blocking effects when the outcome occurs with a maximal intensity on A+ and AX+ trials) are due to the fact that people are uncertain about the causal status of a blocked cue X in a forward blocking design when the outcome is always fully present on A+ and AX+ trials. This should not be the case for a reduced overshadowing cue Y (B- trials followed by BY+ trials). We tested this hypothesis by asking participants which additional information they preferred to see after seeing all learning trials. Results showed (1) that all participants preferred to see the effect of the blocked cue X over seeing the effect of the reduced overshadowing cue Y (Experiment 1), and (2) that more participants preferred to see the blocked cue X on its own when the outcome on A+ and AX+ trials was fully present than when the outcome on those trials had a submaximalintensity (Experiment 2).
Vandorpe
Stefaan
S
Department of Psychology, Universiteit Gent, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium. stefaan.vandorpe@ugent.be
De Houwer
Jan
J
D001245:Association Learning; D001288:Attention; D032882:Comprehension; D003210:Concept Formation; D003463:Cues; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D006801:Humans; D011337:Probability Learning; D011340:Problem Solving; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics