Home > Science Seminar > Spring 2005 Seminar Schedule > Compound Predictor Cues
The Science Seminar Series: February 17, 2005
Primitive induction involving compound predictor cues
Dr. Steven C. Stout, Department of Psychology and Counseling
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA, 31698
Room 1011 Biology/Chemistry BuildingTime: 4:00 -5:00pm
One of the most basic problems that any animal must solve is responding appropriately to future events on the basis of past experience. Behavioral psychologists from the learning tradition have long studied one simple type of induction, often called Pavlovian conditioning. In this task, an animal is observed to anticipate a second event in response to a first event if the two have repeatedly been paired in the past, the first event has regularly preceded the second event, and the two have not often occurred apart from each other. These and similar rules apply to our own species as well, and are reminiscent of the conditions under which David Hume suggested that we will come to perceive a cause-effect relationship. The present talk will present contemporary data from the fields of learning and cognitive psychology about the conditions under which human and nonhuman animals form expectations about the future on the basis of past experience when two or more potential predictor events are involved. A mathematical model of the acquisition of expectation under these conditions will be presented.