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Latent learning — MRCPsych Paper A MCQ

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HardPsychologyLatent learningMRCPsych Paper A

Three matched groups of children complete the same unfamiliar maze once daily. Group 1 receives a reward at the goal on every trial. Group 2 is never rewarded. Group 3 receives no reward for the first 10 trials but is rewarded from trial 11. Group 3 initially performs similarly to Group 2, but after reward is introduced its error rate rapidly falls to approximately that of Group 1. The children have not observed anyone completing the maze. Which learning phenomenon best accounts for Group 3's performance?

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Correct answer: A — Latent learning

The correct answer is A, latent learning. Group 3's abrupt improvement after reward is introduced indicates that learning occurred during the preceding unrewarded exploration but was not expressed until there was an incentive. This demonstrates the distinction between acquisition and performance central to Tolman's latent-learning experiments. Instrumental conditioning involves behaviour being progressively strengthened by its consequences, but it does not adequately explain the rapid expression of knowledge acquired before reinforcement. Place learning concerns learning a spatial location rather than the delayed manifestation of unrewarded learning. Insight learning describes a sudden solution through cognitive reorganisation rather than prior repeated exploration. Stimulus generalisation is responding similarly to stimuli resembling a conditioned stimulus and is not demonstrated here.

Reference: Russek EM, Momennejad I, Botvinick MM, Gershman SJ, Daw ND. Predictive representations can link model-based reinforcement learning to model-free mechanisms, Figure 2a: latent learning. PLoS Computational Biology. 2017;13(9):e1005768. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28945743/