Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: How do we learn causal relations between events from experience?Many have argued for an associative account inspired by animal conditioning models, but there is a growing literature arguing that indirect effects in contingency learning depend on explicit cognitive processes.Our experiments explore the basis of two such effects: blocking and screening off.In Experiment 1, we gave participants an untimed explicit prediction task to replicate standard findings in the contingency learning literature in a novel domain.We obtained robust indirect effects when participants had a causal framework to constrain their reasoning.In Experiment 2, we reduced the time available for explicit recollection by reconstructing the task as a fast-paced RT task.Participants continued to show robust learning of direct relationships, as measured by response times, but there were no indirect effects.Experiment 3 followed up on whether participants in our RT task would produce indirect effects through explicit processes when given an opportunity to make a more deliberative prediction at test.
Authors: Daniel A. Sternberg, James L. McClelland
Institution: Stanford University
Language: English
Subfield: Artificial Intelligence
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W101109447