Feedforward and Feedback in Multiple Cue Probability Learning - Facilitating or Debilitating?

Abstract

Three levels of feed forward information and five levels of feedback information were administered during a 200 two-cue trial experiment to 150 subjects. The feed forward information consisted of instructions on correlative relationships and cue validities. The feedback information consisted of outcome feedback presented at different rates. Results indicated that: subjects provided with a psychologically relevant MCPL setting with labeled cues can perform at a very high level of proficiency without feed forward or feed-back information; statistically naive subjects are unable to use feed forward information to improve their performance; whether subject performance increases or decreases when provided with feedback information depends upon the performance index used; and withdrawal of feedback generally has little effect upon subject performance.