Blocking and unblocking in human causal learning

Le Pelley, Michael Edward, Oakeshott, Stephen M. and McLaren, Ian P. L. 2005. Blocking and unblocking in human causal learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 31 (1) , pp. 56-70. 10.1037/0097-7403.31.1.56

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Abstract

Three experiments sought to develop the suggestion that, under some circumstances, common associative learning mechanisms might underlie animal conditioning and human causal learning, by demonstrating, in humans, an effect analogous to the unblocking by reinforcer omission observed in animal conditioning. Experiment 1 found no such effect. Experiment 2, designed to prevent inhibitory influences that might have masked excitatory unblocking in Experiment 1, demonstrated unblocking, indicating common human-animal associative learning mechanisms in which the associability of a stimulus varies as a function of its predictive history. Experiment 3, using a similar design but with a procedure promoting application of rational inference processes, failed to detect the same unblocking effect, indicating that associative and cognitive mechanisms may influence human causal learning.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Publisher:	American Psychological Association
ISSN:	0097-7403
Last Modified:	19 Mar 2016 22:06
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/3353

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