{"title":"The role of prediction in learned predictiveness.","authors":"Carla J Eatherington, Mark Haselgrove","doi":"10.1037/xan0000330","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Learning permits even relatively uninteresting stimuli to capture attention if they are established as predictors of important outcomes. Associative theories explain this \"learned predictiveness\" effect by positing that attention is a function of the relative strength of the association between stimuli and outcomes. In three experiments we show that this explanation is incomplete: learned overt visual-attention is not a function of the relative strength of the association between stimuli and an outcome. In three experiments, human participants were exposed to triplets of stimuli that comprised (a) a target (that defined correct responding), (b) a stimulus that was perfectly correlated with the presentation of the target, and (c) a stimulus that was uncorrelated with the presentation of the target. Participants' knowledge of the associative relationship between the correlated or uncorrelated stimuli and the target was always good. However, eye-tracking revealed that an attentional bias toward the correlated stimulus only developed when it and target-relevant responding preceded the target stimulus. We propose a framework in which attentional changes are modulated during learning as a function the relative strength of the association between stimuli and the task-relevant response, rather than an association between stimuli and the task-relevant outcome. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":1,"journal":{"name":"Accounts of Chemical Research","volume":" ","pages":"203-221"},"PeriodicalIF":16.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9310352/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Accounts of Chemical Research","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xan0000330","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CHEMISTRY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Learning permits even relatively uninteresting stimuli to capture attention if they are established as predictors of important outcomes. Associative theories explain this "learned predictiveness" effect by positing that attention is a function of the relative strength of the association between stimuli and outcomes. In three experiments we show that this explanation is incomplete: learned overt visual-attention is not a function of the relative strength of the association between stimuli and an outcome. In three experiments, human participants were exposed to triplets of stimuli that comprised (a) a target (that defined correct responding), (b) a stimulus that was perfectly correlated with the presentation of the target, and (c) a stimulus that was uncorrelated with the presentation of the target. Participants' knowledge of the associative relationship between the correlated or uncorrelated stimuli and the target was always good. However, eye-tracking revealed that an attentional bias toward the correlated stimulus only developed when it and target-relevant responding preceded the target stimulus. We propose a framework in which attentional changes are modulated during learning as a function the relative strength of the association between stimuli and the task-relevant response, rather than an association between stimuli and the task-relevant outcome. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
期刊介绍:
Accounts of Chemical Research presents short, concise and critical articles offering easy-to-read overviews of basic research and applications in all areas of chemistry and biochemistry. These short reviews focus on research from the author’s own laboratory and are designed to teach the reader about a research project. In addition, Accounts of Chemical Research publishes commentaries that give an informed opinion on a current research problem. Special Issues online are devoted to a single topic of unusual activity and significance.
Accounts of Chemical Research replaces the traditional article abstract with an article "Conspectus." These entries synopsize the research affording the reader a closer look at the content and significance of an article. Through this provision of a more detailed description of the article contents, the Conspectus enhances the article's discoverability by search engines and the exposure for the research.