Abstract
In three human causal learning experiments, we examined attentional modulation in the blocking task, in which participants typically learn little about a novel cue B when it is paired with a previously trained, predictive cue A. Evidence indicates that this blocking training led to a decrement in attention to the blocked cue B. The present experiments addressed whether this decrease in attention to the blocked cue could be better explained as being due to lateral inhibition from the pretrained cue A to the blocked cue B, or as a cue-specific property that is not conditional on the presence or absence of other stimuli. Strong effects of learned predictiveness were observed on participants’ causal judgments (Experiment 1) and choice behavior (Experiments 2 and 3). However, no evidence for lateral inhibitory processes emerged in any of the experiments, despite explicit attempts to maximize experimental sensitivity to this effect. The results are discussed in the context of formal models of the operation of attentional processes in human and animal learning.
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The research described in this article was conducted while the first author was a visiting researcher at the School of Psychology, Cardiff University, and was supported by a grant from the United Kingdom Economic and Social Research Council to the second author. Additionally, the authors thank Chris J. Mitchell for his valuable comments throughout the course of this research.
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Griffiths, O., Le Pelley, M.E. Attentional changes in blocking are not a consequence of lateral inhibition. Learning & Behavior 37, 27–41 (2009). https://doi.org/10.3758/LB.37.1.27
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/LB.37.1.27