Structural selection in implicit learning of artificial grammars.
In the contextual cueing paradigm, Endo and Takeda (in Percept Psychophys 66:293-302, 2004) provided evidence that implicit learning involves selection of the aspect of a structure that is most useful to one's task. The present study attempted to replicate this finding in artificial grammar learning to investigate whether or not implicit learning commonly involves such a selection. Participants in Experiment 1 were presented with an induction task that could be facilitated by several characteristics of the exemplars. For some participants, those characteristics included a perfectly predictive feature. The results suggested that the aspect of the structure that was most useful to the induction task was selected and learned implicitly. Experiment 2 provided evidence that, although salience affected participants' awareness of the perfectly predictive feature, selection for implicit learning was mainly based on usefulness.
van den Bos
Esther
E
Leiden University, Cognitive Psychology, P.O. Box 9555, 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands. bosejvanden@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
Poletiek
Fenna H
FH
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D007807:Language Tests; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012153:Retention, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*