Booth Samantha L, Buehner Marc J
School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2007 Mar;60(3):387-99. doi: 10.1080/17470210601000839.
A hallmark feature of elemental associative learning theories is that multiple cues compete for associative strength when presented with an outcome. Cue competition effects have been observed in humans, both in forward and in backward blocking procedures (e.g., Shanks, 1985) and are often interpreted as evidence for an associative account of human causal learning (e.g., Shanks & Dickinson, 1987). Waldmann and Holyoak (1992), however, demonstrated that cue competition only occurs in predictive, and not diagnostic, learning paradigms. While unexplainable from an associative perspective, this asymmetry readily follows from structural considerations of causal model theory. In this paper, we show that causal models determine the extent of cue competition not only in forward but also in backward blocking designs. Implications for associative and inferential accounts of causal learning are discussed.
元素联想学习理论的一个标志性特征是，当呈现一个结果时，多个线索会竞争联想强度。线索竞争效应在人类中已被观察到，无论是在前瞻性还是回溯性阻断程序中（例如，尚克斯，1985年），并且常常被解释为人类因果学习的联想解释的证据（例如，尚克斯和迪金森，1987年）。然而，瓦尔德曼和霍利约克（1992年）证明，线索竞争只发生在预测性而非诊断性学习范式中。虽然从联想的角度无法解释，但这种不对称很容易从因果模型理论的结构考虑中得出。在本文中，我们表明因果模型不仅在前瞻性而且在回溯性阻断设计中都决定了线索竞争的程度。并讨论了其对因果学习的联想和推理解释的影响。
