H. Gibbons et al., Latent inhibition depends on inhibitory attentional learning to the preexposed stimulus: Evidence from visual search and rule-learning tasks, LEARN MOTIV, 32(4), 2001, pp. 457-476
Latent inhibition (LI) refers to findings of poorer learning with stimuli p
reexposed as irrelevant, compared to novel stimuli. In order to investigate
the role of attention in traditional LI, two experiments with human subjec
ts were conducted. Experiment I used a simplified visual-search design. As
in previous studies, but now with a simpler design, there was a LI-like eff
ect, thereby supporting the position that attentional learning to irrelevan
tly preexposed stimuli is reduced. Experiment 2 introduced conditions that
were designed to exclude a potential contribution of novel popout to the vi
sual-search LI-like effect. It was shown that the effect could be observed
independently of contributions from novel popout. In addition, when partici
pants were divided into good and poor attentional. learners on the basis of
visual-search LI scores, traditional rule-learning LI was established in g
ood attentional learners, whereas it was absent in poor attentional learner
s. Together, these results indicate that visual-search procedures can be us
ed to provide a measure for LI, and, as such, they support attention-based
explanations of traditional LI. (C) 2001 Academic Press.