Theory Protection in Associative Learning: Humans Maintain Certain Beliefs in a Manner That Violates Prediction Error

Three experiments were conducted to investigate a possible role for certainty in human causal learning. In these experiments, human participants were initially trained with a set of cues, each of which was followed by the presence or absence of an outcome. In a subsequent training stage, 2 of these...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes 2020-04, Vol.46 (2), p.151-161
Main Authors: Spicer, Stuart G., Mitchell, Chris J., Wills, Andy J., Jones, Peter M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Associative learning
Associative Processes
Attitudes
Causality
Female
Human
Learning
Male
Prediction Errors
Predictions
Training
Uncertainty
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Summary:Three experiments were conducted to investigate a possible role for certainty in human causal learning. In these experiments, human participants were initially trained with a set of cues, each of which was followed by the presence or absence of an outcome. In a subsequent training stage, 2 of these cues were trained in a causal compound, and the change in associative strength for each of the cues was compared, using a procedure based on Rescorla (2001). In each experiment, the cues differed in both their causal certainty (on the part of participants) and size of their prediction error (with respect to the outcome). The cue with the larger prediction error was always the cue with the more certain causal status. According to established prediction error models (Bush & Mosteller, 1951; Rescorla, 2001; Rescorla & Wagner, 1972), a larger prediction error should result in a greater updating of associative strength. However, the opposite was observed, as participants always learned more about the cue with the smaller prediction error. A plausible explanation is that participants engaged in a form of theory protection, in which they were resistant to updating their existing beliefs about cues with a certain causal status. Instead, participants appeared to attribute outcomes to cues with a comparatively uncertain causal status, in an apparent violation of prediction error. The potential role of attentional processes (Mackintosh, 1975; Pearce & Hall, 1980) in explaining these results is also discussed.
ISSN:2329-8456
2329-8464
DOI:10.1037/xan0000225