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One experiment in human predictive learning explored the impact of a context change on attention to contexts and predictive ratings controlled by the cue. In Context A: cue X was paired with an outcome four times, while cue Y was presented without an outcome four times in Context B:. In both contexts filler cues were presented without the outcome. During the test, target cues X and Y were presented either in the context where they were trained, or in the alternative context. With the context change expectation of the outcome X, expressed as predictive ratings, decreased in the presence of X and increased in the presence of Y. Looking at the contexts, expressed as a percentage of the overall gaze dwell time on a trial, was high across the four training trials, and increased with the context change. Results suggest that the presentation of unexpected information leads to increases in attention to contextual cues. Implications for contextual control of behavior are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participants were trained in a human predictive learning task in which they had to predict whether the ingestion of a given food (cue) by the imaginary customer of an imaginary restaurant (context) was followed by gastric malaise (outcome). One food was always followed by gastric malaise in one of the contexts, while other foods were not followed by gastric malaise in the same, or in an alternative context. Predictive responses and eye-fixations were recorded throughout the 48 training trials with each cue involved in the task. In agreement with the predictions of the Attentional Theory of Context Processing, attention to the contexts measured through eye-fixations decreased while attention to the cues increased as training progressed. The results of this study give support to the idea that contexts are actively processed at the beginning of acquisition, and that this processing decreases as training increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human participants were trained in a trial-by-trial contingency judgements task in which they had to predict the probability of an outcome (diarrhoea) following different cues (food names) in different contexts (restaurants). Cue P was paired with the outcome on half of the trials (partial reinforcement), while cue C was paired with the outcome on all the trials (continuous reinforcement), both cues in Context A. Test was conducted in both Context A and a different but equally familiar context (B). Context change decreased judgements to C, but not to P (Experiment 1). This effect was found only in the cue trained in the context where a different cue was partially reinforced (Experiment 2). Context switch effects disappeared when different cues received partial reinforcement in both contexts of training (Experiment 3). The implications of these results for an explanation of context switch effects in terms of ambiguity in the meaning of the cues prompting attention to the context (e.g., Bouton, 1997) are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]