Individual differences in causal structures inferred during feature negative learning

Abstract

Traditional associative learning theories predict that training with feature negative (A+/AB-) contingencies leads to the feature B acquiring negative associative strength and becoming a conditioned inhibitor (i.e., prevention learning). However, feature negative training can sometimes result in negative occasion setting, where B modulates the effect of A. Other studies suggest that participants learn about configurations of cues rather than their individual elements. In this study, we administered simultaneous feature negative training to participants in an allergist causal learning task and tested whether evidence for these three types of learning (prevention, modulation, configural) could be captured via self-report in the absence of any procedural manipulation. Across two experiments, we show that only a small subset of participants endorse the prevention option, suggesting that traditional associative models that predict conditioned inhibition do not completely capture how humans learn about negative contingencies. We also show that the degree of transfer in a summation test corresponds to the implied causal structure underlying conditioned inhibition, occasion-setting, and configural learning, and that participants are only partially sensitive to explicit hints about causal structure. We conclude that feature negative training is an ambiguous causal scenario that reveals individual differences in the representation of inhibitory associations, potentially explaining the modest group-level inhibitory effects often found in humans.

Inhibitory causal structures in serial and simultaneous feature negative learning

“…Our previous findings (Lee & Lovibond, 2021) were obtained with a simultaneous AB compound (A and B were presented at the same time). However, the modulatory participants show, in both their causal structure beliefs and transfer, a type of learning that is more commonly observed in animal conditioning with a serial procedure in which the feature B precedes A in time, referred to as negative occasion-setting.…”

“…The aim of Experiment 1 was to compare the degree of transfer of the properties of a negative feature to a previously modulated test excitor compared to a simple excitor that had been trained alone, after simultaneous feature negative training. We used the same allergist causal judgement task and followed the general design and procedure of Lee and Lovibond (2021). This task is well suited for the study of inhibitory learning because participants do not start with a strong prior belief in the inhibitory properties of any food, but there is nonetheless some possibility that a substance within a food could affect allergic reactions.…”

“…It is clear that we do not yet have a consistent empirical picture of inhibitory learning in humans. Our own work suggests that probing the causal beliefs acquired by participants might provide insight into how they are learning, including the possibility that group-level results are an amalgam of distinct patterns displayed by subgroups of participants (Lee et al, 2018;Lee & Lovibond, 2021). In the present project, we carried out three experiments to explore the impact of serial feature negative training on self-reported causal structure as well as transfer in a summation test.…”

“…Although developed to account for animal conditioning data, the Rescorla-Wagner model has also been suggested to provide a good account of causal learning in humans, where excitatory associative strength corresponds to the belief that the stimulus causes the outcome, and inhibitory associative strength corresponds to the belief that the stimulus prevents the outcome (Dickinson et al, 1984). We have recently been interested in exploring individual differences in the beliefs acquired by human participants in a causal learning task involving a feature negative (A+/ AB−) discrimination (Lee & Lovibond, 2021; see also Glautier & Brudan, 2019). We have found that, contrary to the Rescorla-Wagner model, relatively few participants express what they have learned in terms of a causal structure in which feature B directly prevents the outcome.…”

Second-Order Conditioning in Humans

“…In summary, while SOC in humans is probably parameter-dependent, one detail that appears to be crucial is whether participants are encouraged to encode the association between CS2 and CS1 (i.e., the within-compound associations), and/or discouraged from encoding the association between CS2 and the absence of the outcome. Otherwise, some form of inhibitory learning may occur [see Lee and Lovibond (2021) , Lovibond and Lee (2021) for different types of inhibitory learning]. Future studies could test whether parameters known to promote SOC over conditioned inhibition have similar effects in humans.…”