STUDIES IN PREDICTIVE BEHAVIOR: Explorations into predictive judgments based on functional learning and defined by estimation, categorization, and choice

A model for functional learning with a subjective regression which intervenes between stimuli and predictive responses was used. The subject had to predict motion time of a ball rolling down a chute. The estimation experiments showed that (1) the relation between predicted and objective time, is biased in the direction of t _pred= t ², (2) training does not increase the veridicality. In the categorization experiments (1) learning occurred more rapidly with homogeneous categories, (2) transfer was facilitated after training on heterogeneous categories, (3) learning occurred without reinforcement by observation. In a choice experiment two simultaneous processes were studied, functional and probability learning.