Contemporary learning theories derive much of their explanatory power from the assumption that all stimuli presented vie for associative strength, the assumption of Shared Weight Space (SWS). Theories based on this assumption have proven successful in explaining many of the observed conditioning phenomena in animals. However, work with humans has proven more complex due to outside knowledge, biases, and heuristics (see, e.g., Chapman, 1991; Msetfi et al., 2005; Perales et al., 2004; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974; Viken et al., 2005; Waldmann, 2000 & 2001). The present series of experiments sought to test the assumption of SWS in a task that is less susceptible to the influence of "top-down" factors. An information processing task (i.e., the correlated flankers task) was used so that human participants were completing a central task (i.e., responding to the target) and were unaware as to the importance of the contingencies in the designs, yet were still exposed to them via the irrelevant information (i.e., flankers). Four compound conditioning phenomena were studied in order to test the assumption of SWS. Evidence for the simple predictions coming from SWS theories was mixed. However, a slightly more complex version of these theories can explain the entire pattern of data quite elegantly.
Dissertation
A funny thing happened on the way to the maze: incidental learning of irrelevant information in humans
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Summer 2010
DOI: 10.17077/etd.srii9jji
Free to read and download, Open Access
Abstract
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- A funny thing happened on the way to the maze: incidental learning of irrelevant information in humans
- Creators
- Rose Halterman Danek - University of Iowa
- Contributors
- J. Toby Mordkoff (Advisor)Eliot Hazeltine (Committee Member)Shaun Vecera (Committee Member)Edward Wasserman (Committee Member)Thomas Schnell (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Psychology
- Date degree season
- Summer 2010
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- DOI
- 10.17077/etd.srii9jji
- Number of pages
- viii, 134 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2010 Rose Halterman Danek
- Language
- English
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 128-134).
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences
- Record Identifier
- 9983776900002771
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