The outcome specificity of learned predictiveness effects: Parallels between human causal learning and animal conditioning

Two experiments examined the outcome specificity of a learned predictiveness effect in human causal learning. Experiment 1 indicated that prior experience of a cue–outcome relation modulates learning about that cue with respect to a different outcome from the same affective class but not with respect to an outcome from a different affective class. Experiment 2 ruled out an interpretation of this effect in terms of context specificity. These results indicate that learned predictiveness effects in human causal learning index an associability that is specific to a particular class of outcomes. Moreover, they mirror demonstrations of the reinforcer specificity of analogous effects in animal conditioning, supporting the suggestion that, under some circumstances, human causal learning and animal conditioning reflect the operation of common associative mechanisms. In the field of animal conditioning, it is relatively well estab-lished that experience of a predictive (or nonpredictive) relation between a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an unconditioned stim-ulus (US) appears to affect the processing power devoted to learning about that CS on subsequent learning episodes. One model of such learned predictiveness effects in animal condition