Spatial separation of target and competitor cues enhances blocking of human causality judgements.

Full Abstract

Three experiments were carried out. Each required subjects to make judgements about the causal status of cues following a two-stage blocking procedure. In Stage 1 a competitor cue was consistently paired with an outcome, and in Stage 2 the competitor continued to be paired with the outcome but was accompanied by a target cue. It was predicted that causal judgements for the target would be reduced by the presence of the competitor. In Experiments 1 and 2 the blocking procedure was implemented as a computer simulation of a card game during which subjects had to learn which cards produced the best payouts. The cues that subjects used to make their judgement were colours and symbols that appeared on the backs of the cards. When the target and competitor cues appeared on the same card blocking effects did not emerge, but when they appeared as part of different cards blocking effects were found. Thus, spatial separation of target and competitor cues appeared to facilitate blocking. Experiment 3 replicated the blocking result using spatially separated target and competitor cues.

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Author information

Author/s: Glautier, Steven (S);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southampton, UK. spg@soton.ac.uk

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article

Journal: The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. B, Comparative and physiological psychology (Q J Exp Psychol B), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Apr; vol 55 (issue 2) : pp 121-35

Dates: Created 2002/06/21; Completed 2002/07/18; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12075979, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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