Positive and negative cue redundancy in multiple cue probability learning

In two separate experiments, 80 introductory psychology students completed a two-cue probability learning task in which cue intercorrelation was positive or negative and cue validities were positive or negative. Results indicated that Ss did not learn the negative validity tasks. In addition, there were no significant differences between groups in achievement due to cue intercorrelation within any one experiment. However, the positive redundancy groups were significantly more consistent in the employment of their decision strategy than the negative redundancy groups when cue validities were positive. The negative redundancy groups were superior to positive redundancy groups in matching; again, when cue validities were positive.     

Incidental learning of real-world regularities

The large literature on incidental learning relies almost exclusively on laboratory experiments. Whenever researchers have attempted to demonstrate incidental learning of real-world regularities, they have typically failed to show learning. For example, it is well established that people do not learn regularities in everyday objects, such as the left-right orientation of faces on coins, despite a very large exposure to them. In this report, we examine this apparent contradiction. We argue that most studies exploring real-life incidental learning use tests that are not as sensitive to low-confidence information as those traditionally used in laboratory tasks. Using more sensitive measures, we show that it is possible to learn regularities from British and Japanese cultural life as a direct result of exposure to these regularities. Further, confidence measures suggest that although the information may be acquired incidentally, it can be expressed with and without concomitant awareness of that knowledge.     

Incidental learning of event frequency

Two experiments studied the effect of intentionality of learning on memory for the frequency of occurrence of words on a list. Subjects who learned the items intentionally in preparation for an unspecified memory test remembered frequency as accurately as did those who studied specifically for a frequency-estimation test. Both groups recalled frequency information more accurately than did a group that learned the words incidentally. These results. along with a review of the literature. suggest that there is no strong evidence for the automatic encoding of frequency information.     

Incidental learning of secondary attentional cueing

Subjects instructed to detect targets following moderately valid location cues started being presented at some point in the course of the experiment, without having been informed about it, with a color secondary cue on all invalidly cued trials. In Experiment 1 most subjects quickly learned to use the secondary cue, ending in latency cost being eliminated or even turned negative. The effect failed to manifest only when the secondary cue appeared outside the object serving as imperative cue. Experiment 2 showed that performance with a secondary cue differed significantly from the performance in two control conditions in which colors were not correlated with validity or were not presented at all. On the other hand, it resembled performance of subjects informed beforehand about the secondary cue. Awareness of the contingency as well as of its effect on behavior was probed by a post-test questionnaire. An effect of learning without awareness was not observed in Experiment 1, but was found in Experiment 3, where awareness was probed more shortly after the emergence of incidental learning. Conceivably, subjects first learn to use the contingencies implicitly, and only later do they become aware of the outcome of that learning. Apparently, the attentional system might incidentally learn contingencies detected while being engaged in another task and use them for orienting despite a partial conflict with the following as instructed endogenous cues.     

Incidental sequence learning across the lifespan

The purpose of the present study was to investigate incidental sequence learning across the lifespan. We tested 50 children (aged 7-16), 50 young adults (aged 20-30), and 50 older adults (aged >65) with a sequence learning paradigm that involved both a task and a response sequence. After several blocks of practice, all age groups slowed down when the training sequences were removed, providing indirect evidence for sequence learning. This performance slowing was comparable between groups, indicating no age-related differences. However, when explicit sequence knowledge was considered, age effects were found. For both children and older adults with no or only little explicit knowledge, incidental sequence learning was largely reduced and statistically not significant. In contrast, young adults showed sequence learning irrespective of the amount of explicit knowledge. These results indicate that different learning processes are involved in incidental sequence learning depending on age.     

The influence of cue unreliability on judgment in a multiple cue probability learning task

The effect of cue reliability was tested in a two-cue multiple-cue probability learning (MCPL) task. Subjects were 42 undergraduates. The cue validities were.78 and.37. Unreliability in a cue was defined as variability in multiple observations of that cue on a given trial. That variability was provided by adding random errors to the true value of the cue. One group was given consistent cues (i.e., the more valid cue was the more reliable cue), one group was given inconsistent cues, and the control group was given true scores. Cue reliability did not affect subjects' consistency or achievement, but did interact with the presence of outcome feedback. The subjective weights showed that subjects thought they weighted the more reliable cue more heavily regardless of the cue validities or their actual cue weightings. There were wide individual differences in performance, illustrating the need for an idiographic-statistical approach in studying decision making.     

Beacon training in a water maze can facilitate and compete with subsequent room cue learning in rats

In Stage 1 of 4 experiments in which rats completed a water-maze blocking procedure, experimental groups were trained to use a predictive beacon (hanging above, connected to, or displaced from the platform) to find a submerged escape platform in the presence of predictive or irrelevant background cues and in the presence or absence of irrelevant landmarks. In Stage 2, a fixed beacon, landmarks, and background cues all predicted the platform location. A Room Test (landmarks and background cues only) showed that Stage 1 training with a fixed hanging beacon or the moving displaced beacon facilitated Stage 2 learning of predictive room cues for experimental relative to control subjects. In contrast, Stage 1 training with a moving pole beacon interfered with Stage 2 learning about predictive room cues relative to controls, whereas training with a fixed pole or moving hanging beacon had no effect. We conclude that multiple spatial learning processes influence locating an escape platform in the water maze.     

Statistical methods for a theory of cue learning

A theory of cue learning, which gives rise to a system of recurrent events in Feller's sense, is analyzed mathematically. The distribution of total errors and sampling distribution of mean errors are derived, and the learning curve is investigated. Maximum likelihood estimates of parameters and sampling variances of those estimates are derived. Likelihood ratio tests of the usual null hypotheses and approximate tests of goodness of fit of substantive hypotheses are developed. The distinguishing characteristic of these tests is that they are concerned with meaningful parameters of the learning process.This research was facilitated by the writer's tenure as Faculty Research Fellow, Social Science Research Council, 1959–1961.     

A note on cue probability learning: what conditioning data reveal about cue contrast

In a probabilistic learning task with two complementary cues (C₁ and C₂) and two events (E₁ and E₂) the subject has a tendency to infer that E₂ will occur when C₂ occurs after he/she has observed that E₁ frequently goes with C₁. This phenomenon was termed cue contrast because it reflects the belief that C₂ contrasts with C₁ and should indicate E₂. Two kinds of predictions following from the notion of cue contrast were tested on response proportions from the first block of trials in four previously published experiments on cue probability learning. Of a total of 15 independent observations (eight within-group comparisons; seven between-group comparisons) 13 confirmed the predictions (sign test, p<0.005). It was concluded that cue utilization is both an inductive process based on association between cues and events and an inferential process based on contrast.     

Changes in cue associability across training in human causal learning

A series of experiments studied the amount learned about two food cues (A and B) whose presentation in a meal was followed by an allergy (+) in a fictitious patient. Participants were trained with A+ and C+ in Phase 1 and then with AB+ or AB++ in Phase 2. Subsequent testing revealed that BC was more allergenic than AD, showing that more had been learned about B than A in Phase 2. Participants were also trained with A+, then with AB+, and finally with AB++. The results of interpolating AB+ between A+ and AB++ training were consistent with the hypothesis that pretraining with Cue A selectively suppressed attention to its associate across the AB+ trials and, thereby, reduced the amount subsequently learned about B on AB++ trials.     

The role of variable labels in cue probability learning tasks

Two experiments were conducted to investigate effects of variable labels on cue probability learning performance. Variable labels were manipulated to produce conditions in which the actual statistical structure was congruent or incongruent with that implied by the labels. In Experiment 1 the relevant aspect of statistical structure was the relative magnitude of validity of two cues. In Experiment 2, it was the direction of the slope relating the single cue to the criterion. In terms of task knowledge, congruent labels were better than either incongruent or abstract labels in both tasks, suggesting that congruent labels provide useful information about statistical structure. Prediction consistency with congruent labels was higher than with abstract in both experiments, and marginally better than with incongruent labels in Experiment 2. Compared to abstract labels, incongruent labels led to higher consistency in the two-cue task. In the one-cue task, both incongruent labels and neutral labels (which have content but do not imply any particular statistical structure) increased task knowledge. A proposed Rule Selection and Formation model attributes the advantages of variable labels to better retrieval, a reduced set of strategies, and modification of interpretations of labels.     

Disturbance cues function as a background risk cue but not as an associative learning cue in tadpoles

Animal Cognition - Chemical information has an important role in the sensory ecology of aquatic species. For aquatic prey, chemical cues are a vital source of information related to predator...