Second-order conditioning of human causal learning

Abstract

This article provides the first demonstration of a reliable second-order conditioning (SOC) effect in human causal learning tasks. It demonstrates the human ability to infer relationships between a cause and an effect that were never paired together during training. Experiments 1a and 1b showed a clear and reliable SOC effect, while Experiments 2a and 2b demonstrated that first-order extinction did not affect SOC. These results were similar to those found in animal and human conditioning and suggested that a similar associative mechanism could explain these effects. However, they can also be used to look into the underlying causal mental model people build and store while they are learning this task. From a cognitive view, overall results suggest that an independent rather than a chain causal mental model is stored after second-order learning in human causal tasks.