Learning of event sequences is based on response-effect learning: Further evidence from a serial reaction task.

Four experiments provide converging evidence that serial learning in a serial reaction task is based on response–effect learning, mediated by the learning of the relations between a response and the stimulus that follows it. In Experiment 1, the authors varied the stimulus sequence and the response–stimulus relations while holding the response sequence constant. Learning effects depended on the complexity of the response–stimulus relations but not on the stimulus–stimulus relations. In Experiment 2, transfer of serial learning from 1 stimulus sequence to another was only found when both sequences had identical response–stimulus relations. In Experiment 3, a variation of the stimulus sequence alone had no effect on serial learning, whereas in Experiment 4 learning effects increased when the response–stimulus relations but not the stimulus–stimulus relations were simplified. These findings suggest that serial learning is based on mechanisms of voluntary action control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response–effect learning as a major component of implicit serial learning.

Implicit response–effect learning was examined in 2 experiments, using a visual search version of the serial reaction time task introduced by M. J. Nissen and P. Bullemer (1987). In Experiment 1, the relation between the response to the current stimulus and the location of the stimulus on the next trial (i.e., effect) was varied systematically. In Experiment 2, both the frequency of the association between stimuli and responses and the frequency of the association between responses and effects were manipulated. Only the frequency of the response–effect relation influenced learning. These results indicate that response–effect learning is an important component of serial learning. It is argued that response–effect relations constitute the initial implicit component of learning in serial reaction time tasks. From this implicit knowledge, knowledge about the stimulus sequence as well as the response sequence develops later. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)