ABSTRACT
Generalising what is learned about one stimulus to other but perceptually related stimuli is a basic behavioural phenomenon. We evaluated whether a rule learning mechanism may serve to explain such generalisation. To this end, we assessed whether inference rules communicated through verbal instructions affect generalisation. Expectancy ratings, but not valence ratings, proved sensitive to this manipulation. In addition to revealing a role for inference rules in generalisation, our study has clinical implications as well. More specifically, we argue that targeting inference rules might prove to be an effective strategy to affect the excessive generalisation that is often observed in psychopathology.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
ORCiD
Yannick Boddez http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8067-5969
Marc Patrick Bennett http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7217-4059
Tom Beckers http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9581-1505
Notes
1. That is, we define generalization effects as a subset of learning effects, which are themselves defined as changes in behaviour that result from regularities in the environment (for an extensive discussion see De Houwer et al., Citation2013). More specifically, we therefore define a generalization effect as a change in behaviour due to regularities in the environment in which the generalization stimulus (i.e. the antecedent or test stimulus) was not featured.