Forward blocking in human learning sometimes reflects the failure to encode a cue-outcome relationship.

Chris J. Mitchell*, Peter F. Lovibond, Erin Minard, Yvonna Lavis

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

In two "allergist" causal judgement experiments, participants were trained with a blocking design (A+|AB+). The procedure allowed different food cues to be paired with different fictitious allergic reactions. On test, participants were asked to rate the causal efficacy of the target cues and to recall the particular allergic reaction (outcome) that had followed each cue during training. Forward blocking was observed on the causal judgement measure and on the outcome recall measure in both Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. A backward blocking contingency was also trained in Experiment 2 (AB+|A+). Backward blocking was not observed either on the causal judgement or on the outcome recall measure. The evidence from the recall measure suggests that forward blocking in this task results from a failure to encode the B-outcome relationship during training. Associative and nonassociative mechanisms of forward blocking are discussed.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)830-844
Number of pages0
JournalQ J Exp Psychol (Hove)
Volume59
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2006

Keywords

  • Association
  • Association Learning
  • Cognition
  • Conditioning
  • Classical
  • Cues
  • Food
  • Humans
  • Hypersensitivity
  • Judgment
  • Learning
  • Mental Recall
  • Students

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