Abstraction of covariations in incidental learning and covariation bias

Abstract

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.