Cue Competition Influences Biconditional Discrimination

TY - JOUR

T1 - Cue Competition Influences Biconditional Discrimination

AU - Byrom, Nicola C.

AU - Murphy, Robin A.

PY - 2019/2/1

Y1 - 2019/2/1

N2 - When stimuli are presented in compound and trained to predict an outcome, the cues may compete for association with an outcome. However, if both cues are necessary for solution of the discrimination then competition might be expected to interfere with solution of the discrimination. We consider how unequal stimulus salience influences learning in configural discriminations, where no individual stimulus predicts the outcome. We compared two hypotheses; (1) salience modulation minimises the initial imbalance in salience and (2) that unequal stimulus salience will impair acquisition of configural discriminations. We assessed the effect of varying stimulus salience in a biconditional discrimination (AX+, AY-, BX-, BY+). Across two experiments, we found stronger discrimination when stimuli had matched, rather than mismatched, salience, supporting our second hypothesis. We discuss the implications of this finding for Mackintosh’s (1975) model of selective attention, modified elemental models (e.g., McLaren & Mackintosh, 2002) and configural models of learning.

AB - When stimuli are presented in compound and trained to predict an outcome, the cues may compete for association with an outcome. However, if both cues are necessary for solution of the discrimination then competition might be expected to interfere with solution of the discrimination. We consider how unequal stimulus salience influences learning in configural discriminations, where no individual stimulus predicts the outcome. We compared two hypotheses; (1) salience modulation minimises the initial imbalance in salience and (2) that unequal stimulus salience will impair acquisition of configural discriminations. We assessed the effect of varying stimulus salience in a biconditional discrimination (AX+, AY-, BX-, BY+). Across two experiments, we found stronger discrimination when stimuli had matched, rather than mismatched, salience, supporting our second hypothesis. We discuss the implications of this finding for Mackintosh’s (1975) model of selective attention, modified elemental models (e.g., McLaren & Mackintosh, 2002) and configural models of learning.

KW - Cue competition

KW - Configural learning

KW - Selective attention

KW - Associative processes

KW - Biconditional discrimination

U2 - 10.1080/17470218.2017.1363256

DO - 10.1080/17470218.2017.1363256

M3 - Article

SN - 1747-0218

VL - 72

SP - 182

EP - 192

JO - Quarterly journal of experimental psychology

JF - Quarterly journal of experimental psychology

IS - 2

ER -