ORCID

Abstract

Learning how to make decisions from experience is often studied using probabilistic outcome prediction or choice tasks, asin conditioning, reward learning, or risky gambles (e.g., response A provides reward in 75% of the cases, response B in25% over repeated trials with feedback). One debated phenomenon in such tasks is that of negative recency, describingthat learners expect the rare event after observing a streak ofcommon events (e.g., Gamblers fallacy). Here, we show thatthis behavior, despite instructing participants to use a visualstimulus, also occurs in probabilistic single-cue conditioningtraining, where participants predicted whether digging at a specific location on a plane (visual cue) leads to finding a Vase orNothing (events), when they received reward for correct predictions. We manipulated reward magnitude in three conditions (equal for both common and rare events vs. high forcommon event vs. high for rare event, between factor). Wefurther manipulated whether the label of the rare event wasframed as event (finding a Vase) or non-event (finding Nothing;between factor). The results suggest, that reward magnitudeaffected the emergence of negative recency, being most prevalent when correctly predicting the rare event yielded a highreward, and least prevalent when the common event yieldeda high reward. Interestingly, the event label instead rather affected when the rare event was expected, such that commonVase runs were expected to end earlier than common Nothingruns. We discuss the findings from conditioning and economicperspectives, generally concerning experience-based learning.

Publication Date

2024-01-01

Organisational Unit

School of Psychology

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