title: Deferred feedback sharply dissociates implicit and explicit category learning.
abstract: The controversy over multiple category-learning systems is reminiscent of the controversy over multiple memory systems. Researchers continue to seek paradigms to sharply dissociate explicit category-learning processes (featuring category rules that can be verbalized) from implicit category-learning processes (featuring learned stimulus-response associations that lie outside declarative cognition). We contribute a new dissociative paradigm, adapting the technique of deferred-rearranged reinforcement from comparative psychology. Participants learned matched category tasks that had either a one-dimensional, rule-based solution or a multidimensional, information-integration solution. They received feedback either immediately or after each block of trials, with the feedback organized such that positive outcomes were grouped and negative outcomes were grouped (deferred-rearranged reinforcement). Deferred reinforcement qualitatively eliminated implicit, information-integration category learning. It left intact explicit, rule-based category learning. Moreover, implicit-category learners facing deferred-rearranged reinforcement turned by default and information-processing necessity to rule-based strategies that poorly suited their nominal category task. The results represent one of the strongest explicit-implicit dissociations yet seen in the categorization literature.
authors: 1Department of Psychology, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York.
authors: J David
authors: JD
authors: Smith
authors: Joseph
authors: J
authors: Boomer
authors: Alexandria C
authors: AC
authors: Zakrzewski
authors: Jessica L
authors: JL
authors: Roeder
authors: Barbara A
authors: BA
authors: Church
authors: F Gregory
authors: FG
authors: Ashby
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D003210:Concept Formation / Q000502:physiology*; D030141:Feedback, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: associative learning; category learning; category rules; cognitive neuroscience; explicit cognition; implicit cognition; procedural learning