Abstract
The importance of configural cues and whether a situation involves beneficent or maleficent outcomes was investigated in two experiments on human causal reasoning, based on experienced causal information. Participants learned positive and negative patterning discriminations involving either beneficent or maleficent outcomes in a health-reasoning task and in a social-reasoning task. With maleficent outcomes, positive patterning was consistently easier to learn than negative patterning, a positive patterning advantage that is predicted by current associative theories and commonly taken as evidence for configural cues. However, with beneficent outcomes, the two discrimination tasks were not significantly different in ease of learning, a result not predicted by current theories. The reliable positive patterning effect found with maleficent outcomes broadens the range of conditions in which the effect can be shown in causal reasoning. The novel effect of outcome valence poses an interesting theoretical challenge for attempts to account for the relation between learning about individual cues and combinations of those cues.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Bellingham, W. P., Gillette-Bellingham, K., & Kehoe, E. J. (1985). Summation and configuration in patterning schedules with the rat and rabbit. Animal Learning & Behavior, 13, 152–164.
Cheng, P. W., & Holyoak, K. J. (1985). Pragmatic reasoning schemas. Cognitive Psychology, 17, 391–416. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(85)90014-3
Cobos, P. L., López, F. J., Caño, A., Almaraz, J., & Shanks, D. R. (2002). Mechanisms of predictive and diagnostic causal induction. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 28, 331–346. doi:10.1037/0097-7403.28.4.331
Cosmides, L. (1989). The logic of social exchange: Has natural selection shaped how humans reason? Studies of the Wason selection task. Cognition, 31, 187–276. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(89)90023-1
De Houwer, J., Becker, T., & Glautier, S. (2002). Outcome and cue properties modulate blocking. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 55A, 965–985. doi:10.1080/02724980143000578
Deisig, N., Lachnit, H., Giurfa, M., & Hellstern, F. (2001). Configural olfactory learning in honeybees: Negative and positive patterning discrimination. Learning & Memory, 8, 70–78. doi:10.1101/lm.8.2.70
Deisig, N., Sandoz, J.-C., Giurfa, M., & Lachnit, H. (2007). The trial-spacing effect in olfactory patterning discriminations in honeybees. Behavioural Brain Research, 176, 314–322. doi:10.1016/j.bbr.206.10.019
Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218–226.
Fredrickson, B. L., & Branigan, C. (2005). Positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought-action repertoires. Cognition & Emotion, 19, 313–332. doi:10.1080/02699930441000239
Harris, J. A. (2006). Elemental representations of stimuli in associative learning. Psychological Review, 113, 584–605. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.113.3.584
Harris, J. A., & Livesey, E. J. (2008). Comparing patterning and biconditional discriminations in humans. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 34, 144–154. doi:10.1037/0097-7403.34.1.144
Kamin, L. J. (1969). Predictability, surprise, attention, and conditioning. In B. A. Campbell & R. M. Church (Eds.), Punishment and aversive behavior (pp. 279–296). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Kinder, A., & Lachnit, H. (2002). Responding under time pressure: Testing two animal learning models and a model of visual categorization. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 55A, 173–193.
Krane, R. V., & Wagner, A. R. (1975). Taste aversion learning with a delayed shock US: Implications for the “generality of the laws of learning.” Journal of Comparative & Physiological Psychology, 88, 882–889. doi:10.1037/h0076417
Lachnit, H., & Kimmel, H. D. (1993). Positive and negative patterning in human classical skin conductance response conditioning. Animal Learning & Behavior, 21, 314–326.
Lachnit, H., & Lober, K. (2001). What is learned in patterning discrimination? Further tests of configural accounts of associative learning in human electrodermal conditioning. Biological Psychology, 56, 45–61. doi:10.1016/50301-0511(00)00087-9
Larkin, M. J. W., Aitken, M. R. F., & Dickinson, A. (1998). Retrospective revaluation of causal judgments under positive and negative contingencies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 24, 1331–1352. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.24.6.1331
Le Pelley, M. E., Oakeshott, S. M., Wills, A. J., & McLaren, I. P. L. (2005). The outcome specificity of learned predictiveness effects: Parallels between human causal learning and animal conditioning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 31, 226–236. doi:10.1037/0097-7403.31.2.226
Ludwig, I., & Lachnit, H. (2003). Asymmetric interference in patterning discriminations: A case of modulated attention? Biological Psychology, 62, 133–146. doi:10.1016/S0301-0511(02)00124-2
Matute, H., Arcediano, F., & Miller, R. R. (1996). Test question modulates cue competition between causes and effects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 22, 182–196. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.22.1.182
McLaren, I. P. L., & Macintosh, N. J. (2002). Associative learning and elemental representation: II. Generalization and discrimination. Animal Learning & Behavior, 30, 177–200.
Mitchell, C. J., & Lovibond, P. F. (2002). Backward and forward blocking in human electrodermal conditioning: Blocking requires an assumption of outcome additivity. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 55B, 311–329. doi:10.1080/02724990244000025
Pearce, J. M. (1994). Similarity and discrimination: A selective review and connectionist model. Psychological Review, 101, 578–607. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.101.4.587.
Pearce, J. M. (2002). Evaluation and development of a connectionist theory of configural learning. Animal Learning & Behavior, 30, 73–95.
Rescorla, R. A. (1972). “Configural” conditioning in discrete-trial bar pressing. Journal of Comparative & Physiological Psychology, 79, 307–317. doi:10.1037/h0032553
Rescorla, R. A. (1973). Evidence for “unique stimulus” account of configural conditioning. Journal of Comparative & Physiological Psychology, 85, 331–338. doi:10.1037/h0035046
Rescorla, R. A., & Wagner, A. R. (1972). A theory of Pavlovian conditioning: Variations in the effectiveness of reinforcement and nonreinforcement. In A. H. Black & W. F. Prokasy (Eds.), Classical conditioning II: Current research and theory (pp. 64–99). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Shanks, D. R. (1991). Categorization by a connectionist network. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 17, 433–443. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.17.3.433
Shanks, D. R., Charles, D., Darby, R. J., & Azmi, A. (1998). Configural processes in human associative learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 24, 1353–1378. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.24.6.1353
Shanks, D. R., & Darby, R. J. (1998). Feature- and rule-based generalization in human associative learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 24, 405–415. doi:10.1037/0097-7403.24.4.405
Shanks, D. R., Darby, R. J., & Charles, D. (1998). Resistance to interference in human associative learning: Evidence of configural processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 24, 136–150. doi:10.1037/0097-7403.24.2.136
Wagner, A. R. (2003). Context-sensitive elemental theory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 56B, 7–29.
Waldmann, M. R. (2001). Predictive versus diagnostic causal learning: Evidence from an overshadowing paradigm. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8, 600–608.
Whitlow, J. W., Jr., & Wagner, A. R. (1972). Negative patterning in classical conditioning: Summation of response tendencies to isolable and configural components. Psychonomic Science, 27, 299–301.
Williams, D. A., Sagness, K. E., & McPhee, J. E. (1994). Configural and elemental strategies in predictive learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 20, 694–709. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.20.3.694
Woodbury, C. B. (1943). The learning of stimulus patterns by dogs. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 35, 29–40. doi:10.1037/h0054061
Young, M. E., Wasserman, E. A., Johnson, J. L., & Jones, F. L. (2000). Positive and negative patterning in human causal learning. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 53B, 121–138. doi:10.1080/027249900392922
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
I express my appreciation to Ines Meier, John Beecroft, Melissa Anderson, Danielle Heaton, Elizabeth Cline, and Jennifer Osborn for assistance in collecting these data. I also thank Mary Bravo, Tony Dickinson, Geoffrey Hall, Harald Lachnit, and several anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier versions of the article
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Whitlow, J.W. Effect of outcome valence on positive and negative patterning in human causal reasoning. Learning & Behavior 38, 145–159 (2010). https://doi.org/10.3758/LB.38.2.145
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/LB.38.2.145