Relative prediction error and protection from attentional blink in human associative learning

Abstract

The relationship between predictive learning and attentional processing was investigated in two experiments.
During a learning procedure participants viewed rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of
stimuli in the context of a choice-reaction-time (CRT) task. Salient stimuli in the RSVP streams
were either predictive or non-predictive for the outcome of the CRT task. Following this procedure
we measured attentional blink (AB) to the predictive and non-predictive stimuli. In Experiment 1,
despite the use of a large sample and checks demonstrating the validity of the learning procedure
and the AB measure, we did not observe reduced AB for predictive stimuli. In contrast, in
Experiment 2, where the predictive stimuli occurred alongside salient non-predictive comparison
stimuli, we did find less AB for predictive than for non-predictive stimuli. Our results support an attentional
model of learning in which relative prediction error is used to increase learning rates for good
predictors and reduce learning rates for poor predictors and provide confirmation of the AB learning
effect.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Steven Glautier: orcid.org/0000-0001-8852-3268

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