Integration rules in a multiple-cue probability learning task with intercorrelated cues

Armelius, B., and Armelius, K. Integratici miles in a multiple-cue probability learning task with intercorrelated cues. Umeå Psychological Reports No. 80, 1975. - The question of hew the subjects use the cues in multiple-cue probability learning tasks was studied by having the subjects fill in a questionnaire asking than to describe how they had made their predictions. The questionnaire was given after the subjects had completed their learning of a two-cue suppressor variable task for 100 trials. For 19 of the subjects it was possible to formulate a model on the basis of their verbal report. The models were classified as a) linear models b) configurai models or c) estimated weights models. The correlation between the responses generated by the model and the actual responses was computed for each subject. Goodness of fit of the models was found to be quite satisfactory. The results of the learning phase shewed that ten subjects reached a performance higher than that expected if they only utilized the information provided by the cue criterion correlations. Performance was highest for subjects using a linear model, while the achievement was low for subjects using an estimated weights model due to the low consistency. The performance of subjects using configurai models was relatively poor due to the low validity of the configurai models in the present task. When •the validity of the models was taken into account, however, the configurai nodels were found to be as easy to follow as the linear models. The conclusions were that it is possible to use the verbal reports given by the subjects to study the strategies employed by the subjects in MCPL tasks, and that it is necessary to do so since very different psychological processes may be expressed in the game mathematical model.digitalisering@um