Interference between cues of the same outcome in a non-causally framed scenario

Retroactive interference between cues of the same outcome (i.e., IbC) occurs when the behavioral expression of an association between a cue and an outcome (e.g., A-->O1) is reduced due to the later acquisition of an association between a different cue and the same outcome (e.g., B-->O1). Though this interference effect has been traditionally explained within an associative framework, there is recent evidence showing that IbC effect may be better understood in terms of the operation of higher order causal reasoning processes. The results from Experiments 1 and 2 showed an IbC effect in a learning task within a game scenario suggesting non-causal relationships between events. Thus, these results showed that IbC may have a diverse origin, one of them being of an associative nature.