How competitive is cue competition?

Abstract

Cue competition refers to phenomena indicating that learning about the relationship between a cue and an outcome is influenced by learning about the predictive significance of other cues that are concurrently present. In two autoshaping experiments with pigeons, we investigated the strength of competition among cues for predictive value. In each experiment, animals received an overexpectation training (A+, D+ followed by AD+). In addition, the training schedule of each experiment comprised two control conditions—one condition to evaluate the presence of overexpectation (B+ followed by BY+) and a second one to assess the strength of competition among cues (C+ followed by CZ−). Training trials were followed by a test with individual stimuli (A, B, C). Experiment 1 revealed no evidence for cue competition as responding during the test mirrored the individual cue–outcome contingencies. The test results from Experiment 2, which included an outcome additivity training, showed cue competition in form of an overexpectation effect as responding was weaker for Stimulus A than Stimulus B. However, the test results from Experiment 2 also revealed that responding to Stimulus A was stronger than to Stimulus C, which indicates that competition among cues was not as strong as predicted by some influential theories of associative learning.