Outcome maximality and additivity training also influence cue competition in causal learning when learning involves many cues and events

Abstract

Recent evidence shows that outcome maximality (e.g., De Houwer, Beckers, & Glautier, 2002) and additivity training (e.g., Lovibond, Been, Mitchell, Bouton, & Frohard, 2003) have an influence on cue competition in human causal learning. This evidence supports the idea that cue competition is based on controlled reasoning processes rather than on automatic associative processes. Until now, however, all the evidence for controlled reasoning processes comes from studies with rather simple designs that involved only few cues and events. We conducted two experiments with a complex design involving 24 different cues. The results showed that outcome maximality and additivity training had an influence on cue competition but that this influence was more pronounced for forward cue competition than for retrospective cue competition.

*Stefaan Vandorpe and Tom Beckers are postdoctoral researchers for the Fund for Scientific Research (FWO–Flanders, Belgium).

Acknowledgments

We thank Klaus Melchers for providing us with a copy of the pictures that he used in his studies and Peter Lovibond and Michael Waldmann for their comments on an earlier draft of the paper.

Notes

*Stefaan Vandorpe and Tom Beckers are postdoctoral researchers for the Fund for Scientific Research (FWO–Flanders, Belgium).

¹ A higher order reasoning account predicts small or no blocking effects when the outcome always occurs on A + and AX + trials. However, Waldmann and Walker (2005) compared the causal rating of the blocked cue X with the causal rating of cue A, and in the study of De Houwer and Beckers (2003) the outcome occurred with a submaximal intensity. As a consequence, strong blocking effects occurred in the easy task conditions.