Blocking of human causal learning involves learned changes in stimulus processing

Abstract

Several theories of associative learning propose that blocking reflects changes in the processing devoted to learning about cues. The results of the only direct test of this suggestion in human learning (Kruschke & Blair, 2000) could equally well be explained in terms of, among others, interference in learning or memory. The present study tested this suggestion in a situation in which processing-change and interference accounts predict opposing results. Results support the idea that blocking in human learning can reflect a change in processing of the cues involved.

This work was supported by Grant RES000230983 from the Economic and Social Research Council to M. E. Le Pelley.

Notes

¹ Some authors have also raised issues with the medical diagnosis paradigm in studies of cue competition (e.g., Waldmann, 2000). This has the peculiarity that participants diagnose the disease that a patient suffers from on the basis of their symptoms, whereas the causal relationship is reversed: The disease causes the symptoms. Waldmann argues that cue competition, including blocking, is fundamentally different in diagnostic learning (where cues are effects, and outcomes are causes) and predictive learning (where cues are causes, and outcomes are effects). Our view is that associative learning should be expected to be robust under different experimental paradigms and that one should be wary of ascribing unexpected results to such differences. Nevertheless we acknowledge the concerns expressed by others in the field, and hence the present experiment uses a predictive learning paradigm.