Positive and negative patterning in human causal learning.

Abstract

Investigations of patterning discriminations by nonhuman animals have generally found that positive patterning is easier to learn than negative patterning. Studies of patterning discriminations in human causal learning tasks have failed to document any differences between positive and negative patterning. In the present study, human participants predicted an outcome on trials involving either a compound cue or its elements. Positive and negative patterning problems were successfully solved in a within-subjects design; negative patterning problems proved to be more difficult when an additional, 50% contingent cue was included (Experiment 2), but not when it was excluded (Experiment 1). Possible reasons for these results are discussed. The discussion concludes with an analysis of exemplar models (e.g., Pearce, 1994) of human causal learning and considers the conditions under which these models do and do not anticipate our results.