Salience of item knowledge in learning artificial grammars.

Both the specific similarity of test items to study items and the grammaticality of test items were found to be major determinants of performance under task conditions common in the literature. Results bearing on the issue of how item-specific effects are coordinated with knowledge pooled across items are: (1) Better item memory resulted in smaller rather than larger effects of specific similarity on judgments of grammaticality, suggesting that items can be too well differentiated to support transfer to new items. (2) Variation in the effect of specific similarity did not result in compensatory variation in grammaticality, suggesting that any scheme that tightly links the effects of the 2 variables is insufficient. (3) Differential reliance on the 2 knowledge resources was not under good instructional control, which poses a problem for accounts that use functional task analyses to coordinate functionally different memories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unconscious knowledge of artificial grammars is applied strategically.

The criteria by which incidentally acquired knowledge of an artificial grammar (A. S. Reber, 1967) could be unconscious was explored in 5 experiments. Participants trained on an artificial grammar lacked metaknowledge of their knowledge: Participants classified substantially above chance even when they believed that they were literally guessing, and, under some conditions, participants' confidence in incorrect decisions was just as great as their confidence in correct decisions. However, participants had a large degree of strategic control over their knowledge: Participants trained on 2 grammars could decide which grammar to apply in a test phase, and there was no detectable tendency for participants to apply the other grammar. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intact learning of artificial grammars and intact category learning by patients with Parkinson's disease.

Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) have been shown to be impaired on some nondeclarative memory tasks that require cognitive skill teaming (perceptual-motor sequence learning, probabilistic classification). To determine what other skill-based tasks are impaired, 13 patients with PD were tested on artificial grammar learning, artificial grammar learning with transfer to novel lettersets, and prototype learning. Patients with PD performed similarly to controls on all 3 tests. The intact learning exhibited by PD patients on these tests suggests that nondeclarative cognitive skill learning is not a single entity supported by the neostriatum. If learning the regularities among visual stimuli is the principal feature of artificial grammar learning and prototype learning, then these forms of skill learning may be examples of perceptual learning, and they may occur in early visual cortical processing areas. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

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

Ss were trained on letter pairs or letter strings in an artificial grammar learning paradigm to determine the extent to which implicit learning is driven by simple associative knowledge. Learning on strings resulted in sensitivity to violations of grammaticality and in transfer to a changed letter set. Learning on letter pairs resulted in less sensitivity and no transfer. Discrepancies in performance were later reduced, but not eliminated, by equating the task demands of the conditions during learning. A direct test of associative knowledge showed that training on letter pairs resulted in knowledge of legal bigrams, but this knowledge was only weakly related to violation sensitivity. The experiments demonstrate that knowledge of isolated associations is sufficient to support some learning, but this knowledge cannot explain the more abstract knowledge that results from learning on complete exemplars. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Task-relevant chunking in sequence learning.

In the present study, we investigated possible influences on the unitization of responses. In Experiments 1, 2, 3, and 6, we found that when the same small fragment (i.e., a few consecutive responses in a sequence) was presented as part of two larger sequences, participants responded to it faster when it was part of the sequence that was presented more often. This indicates that chunking can be driven by task-relevant considerations, as opposed to co-occurrence. The results are discussed in the context of chunking theories and the relevant motor learning literature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Buffer loading and chunking in sequential keypressing.

Thirty-six participants practiced a task in which they continuously cycled through a fixed series of nine keypresses, each carried out by a single finger (cf. Keele & Summers, 1976). The results of the first experimental phase, the practice phase, support the notion that pauses between successive keypresses at fixed locations induces the development of integrated sequence representations (i.e., motor chunks) and reject the idea that a rhythm is learned. When different sequences were produced in the transfer phase, performance dropped considerably unless the sequence was relatively short and there was ample time for preparation. This demonstrates that motor chunks are content specific and that the absence of motor chunks shows when there is no time for advance loading of the motor buffer or the capacity of the motor buffer is insufficient to contain the entire keypressing sequence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Further evidence for hierarchical chunking in rat spatial memory.

In Experiment 1, rats were given a test to determine the order of preference among 3 types of food. Two groups of rats then were trained on a 12-arm radial maze in Experiment 2, with the 3 foods placed in fixed-arm locations for 1 group and in locations that varied randomly across sessions for the other group. The results replicated those of Dallal and Meck (1990) by showing faster learning and more clustering of arm choices by food type in the fixed locations group than in the random-locations group. Two further experiments were performed to test the chunking hypothesis. Observations of working memory in Experiment 3 and the reorganization of reference memory in Experiment 4 both supported the chunking hypothesis by showing superior spatial memory and arm chunking by food type when chunk integrity was maintained than when it was compromised. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Causal chunking: Memory and inference in ongoing interaction.

We propose that people simplify their perceptions of their interactions by organizing them into discrete causal chunks. Once formed, these chunks presumably influence the extent to which people are aware of their influence on others, as well as their impressions of others. We anticipated that people would form self-causal chunks when they possessed an offensive set and other-causal chunks when they possessed a defensive set. We also expected that a self-causal chunking strategy would make salient people's influence on their partners and thereby discourage them from concluding that their partners' behaviors reflected underlying dispositions. In contrast, we anticipated that an other-causal chunking strategy would obscure people's influence on their partners, thereby encouraging them to infer that their partners' behaviors reflected underlying dispositions. We tested these hypotheses by inducing participants to develop either a defensive or an offensive set prior to interacting with another person in a simulated arms race. After the interactions, we assessed the manner in which participants chunked their interactions, as well as their impressions of partners. The results supported our predictions. Implications for understanding conflict and misunderstanding in interpersonal relations are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rule abstraction, item memory, and chunking in rat serial-pattern tracking.

Two studies used a stimulus tracking paradigm to test whether rats are sensitive to the rule-based formal properties of structured serial patterns. Hooded rats tracked 16-element patterns of flashing lights by pressing levers under an array of 6 indicator lights. In Experiment 1, rats tracked a pattern similar to one previously used with human subjects and yielded remarkably similar results. More errors and response omissions occurred at boundaries of structural "chunks" than within chunks, and errors often reflected anticipation of the next chunk or extrapolation of the preceding chunk. In Experiment 2, temporal "phrasing" cues encouraged different groups to encode a pattern as a series of either "runs" or "trills." Differential placement of pauses induced rats to encode different rule-based representations of the pattern. Results indicate that under appropriate conditions rats may encode a representation of formal structure when they learn organized response patterns. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Syllable chunking in zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) song.

Examined how 61 young zebra finch males copied song from 5 adult tutors. Zebra finch song consists of a string of 5–25 distinct syllables, and these syllables were copied as chunks, or strings of consecutive syllables (modal length?=?3). The silent interval between 2 syllables was copied as part of the syllable after the silence. Copied chunks had boundaries that fell at consistent locations within the tutor's song, marked by a relatively long intersyllable silent period, a transition between call-like and noncall-like syllables, and a tendency for the tutor male to stop his song short. Young males also tended to break their songs off at the bondaries of the chunks they had copied. Chunks appear to be an intermediate level of hierarchy in song organization and to have both perceptual (syllables were learned as part of a chunk) and motor (song delivery was broken almost exclusively at chunk boundaries) aspects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automatic comparisons of artificial digits never compared: Learning linear ordering relations.

In 2 experiments, participants were trained to perform magnitude decisions, that is, decide which of 2 arbitrary symbols in a pair represented a larger magnitude. The symbols corresponded to locations on an implicit linear scale. Training resulted in a Stroop-like size congruity effect when the participants had to decide which symbol in a pair was physically larger. This effect, showing automaticity of the processing of magnitude relations, was also obtained for pairs never encountered during practice. The implications of these findings for processing of magnitude relations and for theories of automaticity are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Webs, cell assemblies, and chunking in neural nets: Introduction.

This introduction to W. A. Wickelgren (1992), describes a theory of idea representation and learning in the cerebral cortex and seven properties of D. O. Hebb's (1949) formulation of cell assemblies that have played a major role in all such neural net models. Ideas are represented in the cerebral cortex by webs (innate cell assemblies), using sparse coding with sparse, all-or-none, innate linking. Recruiting a web to represent a new idea is called chunking. The innate links that bind the neurons of a web are basal dendritic synapses. Learning modifies the apical dendritic synapses that associate neurons in one web to neurons in another web. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Collective induction without cooperation? Learning and knowledge transfer in cooperative groups and competitive auctions.

There is strong evidence that groups perform better than individuals do on intellective tasks with demonstrably correct solutions. Typically, these studies assume that group members share common goals. The authors extend this line of research by replacing standard face-to-face group interactions with competitive auctions, allowing for conflicting individual incentives. In a series of studies involving the well-known Wason selection task, they demonstrate that competitive auctions induce learning effects equally impressive as those of standard group interactions, and they uncover specific and general knowledge transfers from these institutions to new reasoning problems. The authors identify payoff feedback and information pooling as the driving factors underlying these findings, and they explain these factors within the theoretical framework of collective induction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning with analogy and elaborative interrogation.

Previous work has found that embedding analogy in a text improves accurate inferencing, but at the expense of factual learning of newly learned scientific concepts. This study explored the possibility of eliminating the decrease in factual learning by combining analogy with key-word highlighting, pictorial schematics, or elaborative interrogation. Schematics had no effect on either factual or inference learning. Combining key-word highlighting with analogy increased factual learning to levels comparable with those found in the literal-text conditions. Elaborative interrogation produced robust gains in both factual and inference learning, regardless of whether the technique was combined with analogy. These results represent an extension of the situations in which elaborative interrogation produces potent learning benefits and emphasizes its potential over alternative instructional methods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social facilitation in a competitive situation.

80 male introductory psychology students participated in a study to determine whether or not the effects of social facilitation could be isolated from the effects of rivalry when people were competing in the presence of one another. The dependent variables were performance on a form board and tonic heart rate (hr). No evidence was found to indicate that the effects of social facilitation could be isolated from the effects of rivalry. Increases in tonic hr are interpreted as indicating that rivalry is an incentive (p     

Drivelike motivational properties of competitive behavior.

Three experiments with 136 undergraduates demonstrated an empirical correspondence between drive effects and the drivelike motivation aroused by competition, and contributed to an accumulating body of literature that attributes aversively motivating properties to competitive behavior. Exps I and II centered on an instrumental escape conditioning model from which predictions were derived and tested. Competitive analogs of drive intensity and intermittent shock effects served to pinpoint the source of drive to the competition between opponents. The drivelike properties aroused by competition were further examined in the context of the standard learning paradigm of a test for the energizing effect of an irrelevant drive on behavior. Exp III produced a pattern of results that strongly suggests, as is characteristic of known drives, that the drive aroused by competition exerted a general energizing effect on behavior. (51 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's Learning.

A new field of children's learning is emerging. This new field differs from the old in recognizing that children's learning includes active as well as passive mechanisms and qualitative as well as quantitative changes. Children's learning involves substantial variability of representations and strategies within individual children as well as across different children. The path of learning involves the introduction of new approaches as well as changes in the frequency of prior ones. The rate and the breadth of learning tend to occur at a human scale, intermediate between the extremes depicted by symbolic and connectionist models. Learning has many sources; one that is particularly promising for educational purposes is self-explanations. Overall, contemporary analyses show that learning and development have a great deal in common. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning from the experiences of people with disabilities.

Comments on a paper by J. W. Jacobson et al (see record 1996-12698-001) on the history of facilitated communication. D. Biklen contends that the authors ignored by omission much data that make facilitated communication an example of the complexities of inquiry on human behavior. Examples of such data are provided on language, intelligence, the existence of apraxia-dyspraxia in autism, the uses and abuses of facilitated communication, and the testing of facilitated communication. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivating and reinforcing functions of competitive behavior.

Competition has frequently been conceptualized as a performance motivator that spurs individuals on to greater efforts. It is commented that the relative paucity of rigorous theory and systematic research fully exploiting this common assumption is surprising. Employing the general approach that N. E. Miller called "extension of liberalized stimulus–response theory," a theory of certain aspects of competitive behavior was developed. Findings from 5 experiments with 174 undergraduates are reported. The research centered on an instrumental escape conditioning model from which predictions were derived, tested, and replicated. Findings reveal a point-for-point correspondence between the effects of a reinforcer in escape conditioning and the effects of competition cessation in competitive performance. (51 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Theories of artificial grammar learning.

Artificial grammar learning (AGL) is one of the most commonly used paradigms for the study of implicit learning and the contrast between rules, similarity, and associative learning. Despite five decades of extensive research, however, a satisfactory theoretical consensus has not been forthcoming. Theoretical accounts of AGL are reviewed, together with relevant human experimental and neuroscience data. The author concludes that satisfactory understanding of AGL requires (a) an understanding of implicit knowledge as knowledge that is not consciously activated at the time of a cognitive operation; this could be because the corresponding representations are impoverished or they cannot be concurrently supported in working memory with other representations or operations, and (b) adopting a frequency-independent view of rule knowledge and contrasting rule knowledge with specific similarity and associative learning (co-occurrence) knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)