ERIC Number: EJ730557
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2004-Apr
Pages: 11
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0278-2626
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More Learned Irrelevance than Perseveration Errors in Rule Shifting in Healthy Subjects
Maes, J. H. R.; Damen, M. D. C.; Eling, P. A. T. M.
Brain and Cognition, v54 n3 p201-211 Apr 2004
The present experiments examined the extent to which two possible sources of error affect healthy subjects' performance in a rule-shift task. All 115 participants first received a discrimination learning task, in which a pair of different visual stimuli was presented on each trial, one of which had to be identified as "correct." Each stimulus varied in two dimensions: a task-relevant and a task-irrelevant dimension. Feedback on correctness was given after each choice. After eight successive correct choices, the nature of the task-relevant dimension changed: the post-shift learning phase. Two types of errors can occur in this phase: continued responding to the former relevant, but now irrelevant, dimension, a perseverative error, and non-responding to the former irrelevant, but now relevant, dimension, an error due to learned irrelevance. Different groups received a post-shift task in which none, one, or both of these two types of errors could affect performance. The number of incorrect choices in the post-shift phase was significantly affected by learned-irrelevance errors but not by perseverative errors. An associative-learning model incorporating feedback-induced changes in both associative strength and saliency of the elements comprising the stimuli can explain these results.
Descriptors: Discrimination Learning, Visual Stimuli, Cognitive Processes, Persistence, Associative Learning
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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