title: A theoretical note in interpretation of the "redundancy effect" in associative learning.
abstract: In a recent series of papers, Pearce and colleagues (e.g., Pearce, Dopson, Haselgrove, & Esber, 2012) have demonstrated a so-called "redundancy effect" in Pavlovian conditioning, which is the finding of more conditioned responding to a redundant cue trained as part of a blocking procedure (A+AX+) than to a redundant cue trained as part of a simple discrimination procedure (BY+CY-). This phenomenon presents a serious challenge for those theories of conditioning that compute learning through a global error-term. In this paper, we use the Rescorla and Wagner (1972) model as a prototypical example to demonstrate that the redundancy effect can be accounted for by this class of theories if the experimental stimuli are assumed to share a common component. We also point to some domains in which this approach leads to novel predictions that may deserve empirical evaluation. (PsycINFO Database Record
authors: Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Talca.
authors: Edgar H
authors: EH
authors: Vogel
authors: Department of Psychology, Yale University.
authors: Allan R
authors: AR
authors: Wagner
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001245:Association Learning; D003214:Conditioning, Classical; D007858:Learning