ON LEARNING TO PREDICT EVENTS

B jörkman , M. On learning to predict events. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1962, 3 , 233–240.—A rather large group of 'real life situations' requires a subject to predict events which are causally related to variables of the situation. Some operational characteristics of such situations are described. A primary question concerns the learning of the connection between situation and event ( S → E learning).—In an illustrative experiment frequency of 'reinforcement by observation' is varied. It is found that this factor can vary considerably without affecting rate of learning. As a preliminary conclusion it is suggested that reinforcement by observation as a differentiating factor is dependent on other factors, e.g. the dispersion of states of the situation.