Cue competition in mental state inference: Blocking effects in learning to interpret the behaviors of others

In the literature on learning, one of the most robust cue competition effects is blocking: the previous learning of a cue-outcome association prevents learning that other cues predict the same outcome if those cues are presented together with the first cue. In this research, we investigated blocking effects in mental state inference. Participants learned to diagnose the internal states of a target person based on the behaviors he displayed. Blocking effects were observed across several studies, such that, when participants had previously learned that a certain behavior predicted a certain internal state, they later failed to learn about the predictive value of other behaviors that were paired with the original behavioral cue. Implications are discussed for cognitive models of learning and cue competition, as well as for the social psychology of mental state inference.