Abstractness of implicit grammar knowledge: Comments on Perruchet and Pacteau's analysis of synthetic grammar learning.

On the basis of 3 experiments, P. Perruchet and C. Pacteau (see record 1991-00329-001) argued that implicitly acquired knowledge of a synthetic grammar consists of little more than knowledge of pairwise associations between pairs of letters in the grammar. By comparing their results with a study by R. C. Mathews et al (see record 1990-03549-001), it is argued that (a) implicitly acquired knowledge is much richer and more abstract than suggested by Perruchet and Pacteau, (b) their recognition measures are less sensitive than the recall measures of Mathews et al for detecting conscious awareness of implicit knowledge, and (c) fragmentary knowledge of a grammar constitutes abstract rules that enable performance of complex tasks when integrated into a system for combining knowledge across rules. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Defining the knowledge units of a synthetic language: Comment on Vokey and Brooks (1992).

J. R. Vokey and L. R. Brooks (see record 1992-18658-001) reported a set of experiments intended to demonstrate that judgments of grammaticality are determined by 2 characteristics of the test items: their similarity with a specific study item and their conformity with an abstract representation of the generative grammar. The author argues that both effects may be encompassed within a unified account, which requires neither a specific-item retrieval process nor an abstractive capacity. The basic assumption is that the primary knowledge units are not whole strings of letters, as postulated in models relying on specific similarity or abstraction, but rather fragments of 2 or 3 letters. Partial memorization of these small units provides a convenient account of the whole pattern of Vokey and Brooks's findings because study items have more units in common with similar than with dissimilar test items, and likewise with grammatical than with ungrammatical ones. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

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

Examined 2 possible bases for grammatical judgments following syntactical learning: unconscious representations of a formal grammar, as in A. S. Reber's (see record 1976-21811-001) hypothesis of implicit learning, and conscious rules within information grammars. 50 undergraduates inspected strings generated by a finite-state grammar, viewed either one at a time or all at a time, with implicit or explicit learning instructions. 15 undergraduates served as controls. In a transfer test, Ss and controls judged the grammaticality of grammatical and nongrammatical strings and reported the bases for their judgments. Concurrent with previous results, Ss correctly classified a significant number of novel strings, indicating the operation of grammatical abstraction. However, reported rules predicted those grammatical judgments without significant residual. Ss acquired correlated grammars—personal sets of conscious rules, each of limited scope and many of imperfect validity. The rules embodied abstractions, consciously represented novelty that could account for abstraction embodied in judgments. It is argued that a better explanation of these results credits grammatical judgments to conscious rules within informal grammars rather than to unconscious representations of a formal grammar. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transfer in artificial grammar learning: A reevaluation.

This article covers methodological and theoretical issues in artificial grammar learning. Arguments that such tasks are mediated by abstract knowledge (e.g., A. S. Reber, see record 1991-00330-001) are based primarily on evidence from transfer experiments, where the surface vocabulary is changed between learning and test items. Because of a number of methodological concerns, the small magnitudes of artificial grammar learning effects generally are difficult to interpret. Possible solutions are offered here. Furthermore, even reliable transfer effects imply neither that subjects have acquired abstract knowledge of the underlying grammar nor that they are performing a process of abstract analogy from memorized whole exemplars. Models that learn only surface fragments of the training stimuli and perform abstraction at test rather than during learning are wholly consistent with transfer phenomena. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Incidentally, things in general are particularly determined: An episodic-processing account of implicit learning.

People can become sensitive to the rules of a grammar without awareness. A. S. Reber (1989) and others have argued that this implicit learning results from automatic abstraction of general structure. Instead, it is argued that people perform only those operations required to satisfy known demands. In various tasks, Ss learned the structures of individual items, coded experiences of processing items in specific ways, or abstracted elements of the general structure: There was no evidence that Ss abstracted structure when it was not required to perform the immediate task. Each type of knowledge was acquired without awareness that the domain had a general structure, but each made Ss sensitive to certain aspects of that structure, enabling them to identify grammatical items in an unanticipated test. The conclusion is that implicit sensitivity to general structure is accidental, a by-product of coding whatever Ss experience in processing stimuli for another purpose. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beyond dissociation logic: Evidence for controlled and automatic influences in artificial grammar learning.

Evidence for unconscious learning has typically been based on dissociations between direct and indirect tests of learning. Because of some inherent problems with dissociation logic, we applied the logic of opposition to 2 artificial grammar learning experiments. In Experiment 1, participants were exposed to 2 different sets of letter strings, generated from 2 different grammars, and later rated test strings for grammaticality with either in-concert (rate grammatical strings consistent with either structure) or opposition (rate grammatical only strings from 1 of the structures) instructions. Manipulating response deadline affected controlled, but not automatic influences. In Experiment 2, after similar training, a source-monitoring test was administered from which the in-concert and opposition conditions were derived. The test indicated that varying the retention interval affected controlled, but not automatic, influences. The results are discussed in terms of awareness, knowledge representation, and metacognitive processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Raven Progressive Matrices: An item and set analysis of subjects grouped by race, sex, and social class.

Investigated whether the internal structure of Raven's Progressive Matrices could account for race and social class differences in the responses of 5th and 6th graders obtained in a previous study by S. Tulkin and J. Newbrough (see record 1968-17225-001). Analysis confirms previous findings that the items are not linearly ordered across the entire test nor within sets. It is concluded that group differences may reflect the perceptual rigidity of lower-class Ss rather than reasoning ability per se. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automatic abstraction of stimulus structure from episodes: Comment on Whittlesea and Dorken (1993).

B. W. Whittlesea and M. D. Dorken's (see record 1993-36194-001) experiments were designed to examine whether implicit learning reflects automatic abstraction of the structure underlying stimuli or instead reflects task-dependent encoding of particular experiences. Their episodic approach presents 2 difficulties: One problem is their assumption that automatic abstraction implies abstraction of knowledge directly from the stimulus rather than from memory representations of experiences. A 2nd problem is that they dichotomized information (item information and global regularities) that is naturally and easily acquired simultaneously. Purely episodic systems become inefficient and waste resources in real-life situations involving high levels of experience. It is argued that it is more fruitful to view memory as a conceptualizer that enables efficient interactions with the environment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When fair is foul and foul is fair: Reverse priming in automatic evaluation.

Responses to information were facilitated by the rapid prior presentation of evaluatively congruent material. This fundamental discovery (R. H. Fazio, D. M. Sanbonmatsu, M. C. Powell, & F. R. Kardes, 1986) marked a breakthrough in research on automatic information processing by demonstrating that evaluative meaning is grasped without conscious control. Experiments employing a word naming task provided stringent tests of the automaticity of evaluation and found support for it. More strikingly, a previously unobserved reversal of these effects (i.e., slower responses to evaluatively matched rather than mismatched items) was found when primes were evaluatively extreme. Procedural variances across 6 experiments revealed that the reverse priming effect was highly robust. This discovery is analogous to demonstrations of contrast effects in controlled judgments. It is theorized that the reverse priming effect reflects an automatic correction for the biasing influence of the prime. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

External validation of the Personality Inventory for Children: Comment on Lachar, Gdowski, and Snyder.

Comments on the D. Lachar et al (see record 1984-19420-001) evidence of external validity for Personality Inventory for Children (PIC), which is based on correlations of PIC scales with dimension scores derived from factor analyses of behavioral ratings. It is argued that due to considerable item overlap between PIC scales and behavior rating forms, correlations may be an indication of rater reliability rather than one of construct validity. This problem is thought to be especially evident for rating forms completed by parents because parents also completed the PIC, and many items are similar in both content and wording. The problem is illustrated using the hostility/dyscontrol dimension derived from parent ratings. (2 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Academic expectations, attributed responsibility, and teachers' reinforcement behavior: A comment on Cooper and Baron, with some additional data.

Criticizes a study by H. M. Cooper and R. M. Baron (see record 1978-08780-001) in which they conclude that teachers' performance expectations were more potent predictors of their reinforcement behavior in class than were their attributions of responsibility. It is argued that this conclusion is questionable because of some methodological flaws in the study. Evidence that shows rather strong associations between teachers' attributions of responsibility and their reinforcement behavior is presented. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Synthetic grammar learning: Implicit rule abstraction or explicit fragmentary knowledge?

3 experiments were designed to demonstrate that classifying new letter strings as grammatical (i.e., conforming to a set of rules called a synthetic grammar) or ungrammatical may proceed from fragmentary conscious knowledge of the bigrams constituting the grammatical strings displayed in the study phase, rather than from an unconscious structured representation of the grammar, as A. S. Reber (see record 1989-38920-001) contended. In Experiment 1, grammaticality judgments of subjects initially studying grammatical letter strings did not differ from judgments by subjects learning from a list of the bigrams making up these strings. In Experiment 2, judgments about nongrammatical strings composed of valid bigrams placed in invalid locations were extremely poor, although better than chance. In Experiment 3 the explicit knowledge of bigrams as assessed by a recognition procedure appeared sufficient to account for observed performance on a standard test of grammaticality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Syntactical learning and judgment, still unconscious and still abstract: Comment on Dulany, Carlson, and Dewey.

Reviews the evidence presented by D. E. Dulany et al (see record 1985-29949-001) in support of their conclusion that implicit learning of artificial grammars is really explicit learning. It is argued that the constraints of the task by Dulany et al to assess Ss' knowledge base carries demand characteristics that may make implicit knowledge appear to be explicitly represented. Related issues, such as the nature of conscious and unconscious control of action, the degree of abstractness of tacit knowledge, the existence of formal vs informal (correlated) grammars, and the nature of intuition, are discussed. A functionalist position in all matters is advocated. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rational explanation of the selection task.

M. Oaksford and N. Chater (O&C, see record 1995-08271-001) presented the first quantitative model of R C. Wason's (1966) selection task in which performance is rational. J. St. B. T. Evans and D. E. Over (see record 83:25190) reply that O&C's account is normatively incorrect and cannot model K. N. Kirby's (see record 1995-04302-001) or R Pollard and J. St. B. T. Evans's (see record 1984-30572-001) data. It is argued that an equivalent measure satisfies their normative concerns and that a modification of O&C's model accounts for their empirical concerns. D. Laming (see record 83:25220) argues that O&C made unjustifiable psychological assumptions and that a "correct" Bayesian analysis agrees with logic. It is argued that O&C's model makes normative and psychological sense and that Laming's analysis is not Bayesian. A. Almor and S. A. Sloman (see record 83:25168) argue that O&C cannot explain their data. It is argued that Almor and Sloman's data do not bear on O&C's model because they alter the nature of the task. It is concluded that O&C's model remains the most compelling and comprehensive account of the selection task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Computational levels and conditional inference: Reply to Schroyens and Schaeken (2003).

This article is a reply to W. Schroyens and W. Schaeken's (2003; see record 2002-08431-014) critique of M. Oaksford, N. Chater, and J. Larkin's (2000; see record 2000-08540-005) conditional probability model (CP) of conditional inference. It is argued that their meta-analysis does not falsify CP because the evidence may bear on more than one computational level of explanation. Moreover, it is argued that CP provides a rational account of more of the data than W. Schroyens and W. Schaeken's mental models theory. Other points are also addressed. It is suggested that W. Schroyens and W. Schaeken's model and CP converge on the importance of probabilistic prior knowledge in conditional inference. This is consistent with the normative literature, which (like CP) treats conditionals in terms of subjective conditional probabilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Abstract Analogies and Positive Transfer in Artificial Grammar Learning.

Following Brooks and Vokey (1991), we show that positive transfer to new items generated from an artificial grammar in which the vocabulary has been changed from training to test can be based on "abstract analogy" to specific training items (specific similarity) rather than abstraction of a grammar and symbol remapping rules, even with remapping unique to each test item. The results confirm that transcendence over symbols provides no support for the implicit learning of abstract structure. Ironically, they also show that the effect of specific similarity does not depend on surface characteristics of the items, but the residual effect of grammaticality does. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is study time allocated selectively to a region of proximal learning?

Five experiments investigated whether people allocate their study time according to the discrepancy reduction model (i.e., to the most difficult items; J. Dunlosky & C. Hertzog, 1998) or to items in their own region of proximal learning. Consistent with the latter hypothesis, as more time was given, people shifted toward studying more difficult items. Experts, whether college students or Grade 6 children, devoted their time to items that were more difficult than did novices. However, in a multiple-trials experiment, people regressed toward easier items on Trial 2 rather than shifting to more difficult items, perhaps because Trial 1 feedback revealed poor learning of the easiest items. These findings are in opposition to the discrepancy reduction model and support the region of proximal learning hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

In defense of functional independence: Violations of assumptions underlying the process-dissociation procedure?

T. Curran and D. L. Hintzman (see record 1995-42725-001) claim to have shown that the independence assumption underlying the process-dissociation procedure (L. L. Jacoby, see record 1992-07943-001) is not justified. They argued that correlations between processes at the level of items can result in an underestimation of automatic processes large enough to produce artifactual dissociations between process estimates. In contrast, the authors show that the effects of extremely high correlations at the level of items are likely to be trivial, and not differential across conditions. Curran and Hintzman's dissociations probably reflect violations of boundary conditions for use of the process-dissociation procedure, rather than violations of independence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The belief-based emotion of suprise: The case for a lag in understanding relative to false belief.

Three experiments were carried out to determine whether there is a lag in predicting surprise relative to false belief. All 3 experiments used "backwards reasoning" tasks. The findings were that ( a ) there is a lag in predicting surprise relative to false belief, ( b ) by 5 or 6 years of age children claim that one will be surprised when they gain knowledge of that which they were previously ignorant or when they discover that they had previously held a false belief, ( c ) by 7 to 9 years of age they understand that surprise will more likely result from false beliefs rather than mere ignorance, and ( d ) children's difficulty understanding surprise as specifically belief-based does not likely stem from information processing limitations. It is argued that the lag likely results because children must build a new concept of surprise ( e.g., from desire- to belief-based ) . (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)