| Abstract: | Subjects' hypotheses in multiple-cue probability learning was studied by trial-by-trial verbal reports in tasks with linear and nonlinear cue-criterion relations. In accordance with earlier findings, the results of the present experiment show that subjects learned linear tasks rapidly, while nonlinear tasks were not learned at all. The subjects' verbal hypotheses show that the subjects were concerned with rules for combining cue values, rather than with cue-criterion functions. This explains why the subjects fail to learn nonlinear multiple-cue tasks. It also shows that, although the subjects seem to learn multiple-cue tasks through a hypothesis testing process of the same kind as in single-cue probability tasks, the hypotheses tested in multiple-cue tasks are different from those tested in single-cue tasks. Finally, the present results suggest that the picture of the subjects' cognitive models of multiple-cue probability learning tasks provided by the customary multiple regression analysis may be fundamentally misleading in that it suggests that the subjects learn the validity of each cue rather than a combination rule. |
