Abstractionist and Processing Accounts of Implicit Learning

doi:10.1006/cogp.2000.0743

Cognitive Psychology

Volume 42, Issue 1, February 2001, Pages 61-112

https://doi.org/10.1006/cogp.2000.0743 Get rights and content

Abstract

Five experiments evaluated the contributions of rule, exemplar, fragment, and episodic knowledge in artificial grammar learning using memorization versus hypothesis-testing training tasks. Strings of letters were generated from a biconditional grammar that allows different sources of responding to be unconfounded. There was no evidence that memorization led to passive abstraction of rules or encoding of whole training exemplars. Memorizers instead used explicit fragment knowledge to identify the grammatical status of test items, although this led to chance performance. Successful hypothesis-testers classified at near-perfect levels by processing training and test stimuli according to their rule structure. The results support the episodic-processing account of implicit and explicit learning.

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^☆

Theresa Johnstone and David R. Shanks, Department of Psychology, University College London, England. This research was supported by United Kingdom Medical Research Council Research Studentship G78/4925 and by a grant from the United Kingdom Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The work is part of the program of the ESRC Centre for Economic Learning and Social Evolution, University College London. We thank Shelley Channon, Axel Cleeremans, Zoltán Dienes, Koen Lamberts, Mark St. John, Richard Tunney, and Bruce Whittlesea for their helpful comments on this work.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to David Shanks, Department of Psychology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, England. E-mail: [email protected].

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Regular ArticleAbstractionist and Processing Accounts of Implicit Learning☆

Abstract

Neuropsychologia

Cognitive Psychology

Journal of Memory and Language

Journal of Memory and Language

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour

Cognition

Cognition

Cognitive Science

Acta Psychologica

Implicit learning in special populations

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research

Modality independence of implicitly learned grammatical knowledge

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

Sexing day-old chicks: A case study and expert systems analysis of a difficult perceptual-learning task

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

Nonanalytic concept formation and memory for instances

Abstract analogies and abstracted grammars: Comments on Reber (1989) and Mathews et al. (1989)

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Mechanisms of implicit learning

Unconscious knowledge of artificial grammars is applied strategically

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

Implicit and explicit knowledge bases in artificial grammar learning

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

A case of syntactical learning and judgment: How conscious and how abstract?

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

The basis of transfer in artificial grammar learning

Memory & Cognition

What is learned from artificial grammars? Transfer tests of simple association

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

“Schema abstraction” in a multiple-trace memory model

Psychological Review

Judgments of frequency and recognition memory in a multiple trace memory model

Psychological Review

Two mechanisms in implicit artificial grammar learning? Comment on Meulemans and Van der Linden (1997)

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

Intact artificial grammar learning in amnesia: Dissociation of classification learning and explicit memory for instances

Psychological Science

The information acquired during artificial grammar learning

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

Artificial grammar learning depends on implicit acquisition of both abstract and exemplar-specific information

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

On the status of nonconscious processes in human cognition: Comment on Reber

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Representing artificial grammars: Transfer across stimulus forms and modalities

Role of implicit and explicit processes in learning from examples: A synergistic effect

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

Regular Article
Abstractionist and Processing Accounts of Implicit Learning☆