Learning a two-cue inference task when one of the cue-criterion relations is known

Learning two-cue probability learning (MPL) tasks when the functional relation between the first cue and the criterion was known to the subject was studied in a factorial experiment. Contrary to the predictions from a hypothesis sampling model assuming independent learning of each cue in MPL, the function form for the first cue was found to affect learning of the second cue, facilitating it when the functional relations were the same for both cues and inhibiting it when the functions were different. These results suggest that it is not possible to extrapolate findings from single-cue probability learning directly to MPL.