Additivity pretraining and cue competition effects: developmental evidence for a reasoning-based account of causal learning

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes
Victoria SimmsTom Beckers

Abstract

The effect of additivity pretraining on blocking has been taken as evidence for a reasoning account of human and animal causal learning. If inferential reasoning underpins this effect, then developmental differences in the magnitude of this effect in children would be expected. Experiment 1 examined cue competition effects in children's (4- to 5-year-olds and 6- to 7-year-olds) causal learning using a new paradigm analogous to the food allergy task used in studies of human adult causal learning. Blocking was stronger in the older than the younger children, and additivity pretraining only affected blocking in the older group. Unovershadowing was not affected by age or by pretraining. In experiment 2, levels of blocking were found to be correlated with the ability to answer questions that required children to reason about additivity. Our results support an inferential reasoning explanation of cue competition effects.

Citations

Mar 19, 2013·Journal of Experimental Child Psychology·Teresa McCormackTom Beckers
Feb 22, 2013·The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology : QJEP·Teresa McCormackTom Beckers
Nov 1, 2016·Child Development·Georg HalbeisenMichael Schneider
Mar 13, 2020·The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology : QJEP·Jonas Sin-Heng LauHarold Pashler

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