Combination rules in multiple-cue probability learning : I, relation to task charateristics and performance

Armelius, B-Å., and Armelius, K. Combination rules in multiple cue probability learning I. Relation to task characteristics and performance. Umeå Psychological Reports No. 99, 1976. - The rules used by subjects in multiple cue probability learning (MCPL) was investigated by means of verbal reports given by subjects at the end of learning of a two cue MCPL-task. Eight tasks varied factorially with respect to task predictability, cue-criterion correlations and the sign of the cue intercorre-lation. In addition there were two orthogonal tasks. 47 of the 100 subjects gave verbal descriptions that were classified as inconsistent or incomplete, 7 were classified as a single rule i.e., the same rule was used for all cue combinations, and 4-6 were classified as multiple rulesi.e., different rules were used for different parts of the cue matrix 77 % of the 53 combination rules were found to account for the systematic variance in subjects responses. While performance was related to the characteristics of the tasks, the frequency of combination rules was not. Subjects with multiple rules reached the highest level of performance and subjects with a single rule the lowest. It was concluded that the formulation of combination rules is important for performance in MCPL. Futher developments of the method to extract combination rules were discussed.digitalisering@um