Selectivity in associative learning: a cognitive stage framework for blocking and cue competition phenomena

Abstract

Blocking is the most important phenomenon in the history of associative learning theory: for over 40 years, blocking has inspired a whole generation of learning models. Blocking is part of a family of effects that are typically termed “cue competition” effects. Common amongst all cue competition effects is that a cue-outcome relation is poorly learned or poorly expressed because the cue is trained in the presence of an alternative predictor or cause of the outcome. We provide an overview of the cognitive processes involved in cue competition effects in humans and propose a stage framework that brings these processes together. The framework contends that the behavioral display of cue competition is cognitively construed following three stages that include (1) an encoding stage, (2) a retention stage, and (3) a performance stage. We argue that the stage framework supports a comprehensive understanding of cue competition effects.

Associative Attitude Learning: A Closer Look at Evidence and How It Relates to Attitude Models

“…This absence of US identity memory, in turn, is interpreted as an absence of S-S linkage. This demonstration is problematic because, in addition to the learning or encoding stage, one also has to consider the memory maintenance or retention, and retrieval or performance stages (e.g., Boddez, Haesen, Baeyens, & Beckers, 2014). Instead of being due to S-R learning, findings may be consistent with explicit encoding of (propositions about) CS-US co-occurrences if we consider what is known about memory maintenance: Forgetting occurs at a higher rate for more detailed, low-level (verbatim) information about a stimulus, whereas more abstract high-level (gist) information is retained over a longer time (e.g., Brainerd & Reyna, 2002).…”

Evaluative Conditioning as Memory-Based Judgment

“…The present account is located at a cognitive or algorithmic level of analysis (De Houwer & Moors, 2014;Marr, 1982). In discussing the present view and its basic hypotheses, it is necessary to distinguish between the cognitive processing stages of encoding or learning, main-Social Psychological Bulletin | 2569-653X https://doi.org/10.5964/spb.v13i3.28589 tenance or retention, and retrieval or performance (Boddez, Haesen, Baeyens, & Beckers, 2014). Contrasting dual-process accounts that focus on the learning stage, the present view holds that many of the dissociations reported in the literature involve later processing stages.…”

Illusions of causality: how they bias our everyday thinking and how they could be reduced

“…However, as we have been advancing, the availability of more than one potential cause can result in a competition between both causes, so that if one is considered to be a strong candidate, the other will be seen as a weak one. Indeed, many experiments with both humans and other animals have reported that when two causes are presented together and followed by an outcome, one of the causes having a previous history of association with that outcome can compete with the attribution of causal strength to the most recent cause ( Shanks and Dickinson, 1987 ; Shanks, 2007 ; Wheeler and Miller, 2008 ; Boddez et al, 2014 ).…”