Subjective measures of awareness and implicit cognition.
In this article, we examine whether artificial grammar learning is implicit according to a subjective criterion of awareness based on confidence ratings. In four experiments, participants discriminated between grammatical and ungrammatical sequences in both the same (Experiment 1) and a novel (Experiments 2-4) vocabulary and indicated their confidence in each decision. Replicating earlier studies, confidence judgments reported on a continuous scale (50%-100%) were only weakly related to accuracy, suggesting that learning was implicit. In contrast, confidence judgments reported on a binary scale (high vs. low) revealed that confidence was related to accuracy. We show that participants are better able to place their phenomenal states on a binary scale, as compared with a continuous scale.
Tunney
Richard J
RJ
ESRC Centre for Economic Learning and Social Evolution, University College London, London, England. r.tunney@keele.ac.uk
Shanks
David R
DR
D001364:Awareness; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011340:Problem Solving; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D012691:Serial Learning; D012718:Set, Psychology; D013360:Subliminal Stimulation; D014825:Vocabulary