THE LEARNING OF NATURAL CONFIGURAL STRATEGIES

The learning of natural configural strategies, strategies that match p eople intuitive theories about configural relationship between variabl es, is studied in a two-cue probability learning paradigm. The main fo cus is the learning of disjunctive strategy, a strategy in which respo nse depends primarily on the high cue, and conjunctive strategy, a str ategy in which response depends primarily on the low cue. We find that people learn disjunctive strategy better when the target of the predi ction is human than when it is non-human, and that they learn conjunct ive strategy better when the target is non-human. In addition, in a me aningful context, conjunctive strategy is learned better in the short run, but after a prolonged feedback, disjunctive strategy is learned b etter, In an abstract context, disjunctive strategy is learned better both in the short run and in the long run. The processes that lead to these differences in the learning of conjunctive and disjunctive strat egies are discussed. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.