De Houwer Jan, Vandorpe Stefaan, Beckers Tom
Department of Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2007 Mar;60(3):418-32. doi: 10.1080/17470210601001084.
Previous studies on causal learning showed that judgements about the causal effect of a cue on an outcome depend on the statistical contingency between the presence of the cue and the outcome. We demonstrate that statistical contingency has a different impact on preparation judgements (i.e., judgements about the usefulness of responses that allow one to prepare for the outcome). Our results suggest that preparation judgements primarily reflect information about the outcome in prior situations that are identical to the test situation. These findings also add to previous evidence showing that people can use contingency information in a flexible manner depending on the type of test question.
以往关于因果学习的研究表明，对线索对结果的因果效应的判断取决于线索出现与结果之间的统计相关性。我们证明，统计相关性对准备判断（即关于使人们能够为结果做好准备的反应的有用性的判断）有不同的影响。我们的结果表明，准备判断主要反映与测试情境相同的先前情境中关于结果的信息。这些发现也补充了先前的证据，表明人们可以根据测试问题的类型灵活地使用相关性信息。
