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Abstraction of covariations in incidental learning and covariation bias
Author(s) -
Perruchet Pierre,
Pacteau Chantal,
Gallego Jorge
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1997.tb02650.x
Subject(s) - psychology , a priori and a posteriori , cognitive psychology , abstraction , set (abstract data type) , reinterpretation , group (periodic table) , statistics , mathematics , computer science , philosophy , chemistry , physics , organic chemistry , epistemology , acoustics , programming language
Experiment 1 was devised to distinguish, in a given set of features composing drawn robots, those whose variations were related a priori for participants from those whose variations were a priori independent. In Expt 2, correlations were experimentally induced between a priori ‐related features for one group of participants ( pre‐primed group), and between a priori ‐independent features for another group { arbitrary group), in incidental learning conditions. A subsequent transfer phase revealed that participants' performances were sensitive to experimentally induced correlations in both groups. However, only the performances of the pre‐primed group accurately matched the predictions of a statistical model devised by K. Richardson (e.g. Richardson & Carthy, 1990), postulating the acquisition of genuine knowledge of the correlational structure. Participants' sensitivity to arbitrary correlations appeared to be a by‐product of the memory of specific study exemplars. These results demand the reinterpretation of some prior experimental evidence for covariation abstraction, and more generally, are consonant with a current view of implicit learning which emphasizes the role of specific prior episodes in complex learning situations.