Learning implicitly to produce avoided behaviours

PLoS ONE, 2013

Typically developing children aged 5 to 8 years were exposed to artificial grammar learning. Following an implicit exposure phase, half of the participants received neutral instructions at test while the other half received instructions making a direct, explicit reference to the training phase. We first aimed to assess whether implicit learning operated in the two test conditions. We then evaluated the differential impact of age on learning performances as a function of test instructions. The results showed that performance did not vary as a function of age in the implicit instructions condition, while age effects emerged when explicit instructions were employed at test. However, performance was affected differently by age and the instructions given at test, depending on whether the implicit learning of short or long units was assessed. These results suggest that the claim that the implicit learning process is independent of age needs to be revised.

Proceedings of the …, 2009

A dominant hypothesis in empirical research on the evolution of language is the following: the fundamental difference between animal and human communication systems is captured by the distinction between regular and more complex non-regular grammars. Studies reporting successful artificial grammar learning of nested recursive structures and imaging studies of the same have methodological shortcomings since they typically allow explicit problem solving strategies and this has been shown to account for the learning effect in subsequent behavioral studies. The present study overcomes these shortcomings by using subtle violations of agreement structure in a preference classification task. In contrast to the studies conducted so far, we use an implicit learning paradigm, allowing the time needed for both abstraction processes and consolidation to take place. Our results demonstrate robust implicit learning of recursively embedded structures (context-free grammar) and recursive structures with cross-dependencies (context-sensitive grammar) in an artificial grammar learning task spanning 9 days.

2000

This paper reports two experiments using a modified artificial grammar paradigm to study the acquisition of generative knowledge. It employs a starship game and a computerized form of motherese to study acquisition of generative knowledge of a grammar. It was found that initial exposure to a small set of representative cases and an opportunity to organize the cases enhanced ability to generate grammatical strings. Neither seeing a large number of cases nor building a conceptual model of the grammar enhanced acquisition of generative knowledge. However, building a conceptual model did increase learners' confidence in their ability to generate strings. The quality of strings generated by learners remained fairly constant across attempts, suggesting that their performance reflects true generative knowledge rather than memories of exemplars.

Speakers often repeat syntactic structures that have recently been used by them or their interlocutors. Such syntactic persistence has variously been attributed to social causes (mimicking to be well-liked), to an effort to reduce processing costs, or as a side effect of either transient activation of previously processed structure or implicit learning. We present new evidence from syntactic persistence in conversational speech consistent with the view that syntactic persistence is an epiphenomenon. We propose that syntactic persistence is linked to the updating and maintenance of probabilistic syntactic knowledge. We find that syntactic persistence is SURPRISAL-SENSITIVE and CUMULATIVE: Syntactic persistence is stronger the less probable the prime and it is sufficiently long-lived to be cumulative.

2000

Journal of Experimental Psychology-learning Memory and Cognition, 1989

Four experiments are reported in which subjects gained extensive experience with artificial grammars in explicit and implicit processing tasks. Results indicated that (a) implicit processing was sufficient for learning a finite state grammar but was inadequate for learning another type of grammar based on logical rules, (b) Subjects were able to communicate some of their implicit knowledge of the grammars to another person, (c) Consistent with rule induction but not memory array models of learning, verbal protocols indicated there was no tendency to converge on the same set of cues used to identify valid strings, (d) A synergistic learning effect occurred when both implicit and explicit processing tasks were used in the grammar based on logical rules but not in the finite state grammar. A theoretical framework is proposed in which implicit learning is conceptualized as an automatic, memory-based mechanism for detecting patterns of family resemblance among exemplars.

European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2008

Psychological Science, 2007

Under incidental instructions, thirty-eight 2-year-olds were trained on a six-element deterministic sequence of spatial locations. Following training, subjects were informed of the presence of a sequence and asked to either reproduce or suppress the learned material. Children's production of the trained sequence was modulated by these instructions. When asked to suppress the trained sequence, the children were able to increase generation of paths that were not from the training sequence. Their performance was thus dependent on active suppression of knowledge, rather than on a random generation strategy. This degree of control in 2-year-olds stands in stark contrast to 3-year-olds' failure to control explicitly instructed rule-based knowledge (as measured by the dimensionalchange card-sort task). We suggest that the incidental nature of a learning episode enables the acquisition of a more procedural form of knowledge with which this age group has more experience prior to the onset of fluent language.

Memory & Cognition, 2011

Artificial grammar learning (AGL) is a widely used experimental paradigm that investigates how syntactic structures are processed. After a familiarization phase, participants have to distinguish strings consistent with a set of grammatical rules from strings that violate these rules. Many experiments report performance solely at a group level and as the total number of correct judgments. This report describes a systematic approach for investigating individual performance and a range of different behaviors. Participants were exposed to strings of the nonfinite grammar A n B n . To distinguish grammatical from ungrammatical strings, participants had to pay attention to local dependencies while comparing the number of stimuli from each class. Individual participants showed substantially different behavioral patterns despite exposure to the same stimuli. The results were replicated across auditory and visual sensory modalities. It is suggested that an analysis that looks at individual differences grants new insights into the processes involved in AGL. It also provides a solid basis from which to investigate sequenceprocessing abilities in special populations, such as patients with neurological lesions.

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 1977

Three monkeys were trained to emit a chain of three responses on three separate levers in a set of six levers to obtain food. The chain producing food (correct chain) was changed each day. During a trial, a press on any lever produced a feedback stimulus; a press on a correct lever produced an additional distinctive stimulus; the third correct press produced a food pellet. Test sessions in which either the food or the distinctive stimuli were removed were interspersed with baseline sessions. In tests without food presentations, the subjects acquired the correct chain rapidly, with a level of accuracy comparable to baseline. Removing the distintive stimuli for either the first or second member of the correct chain greatly retarded acquisition of that member of the chain. Removing all distinctive stimuli often reduced accuracy throughout the chain to chance level, even though food was presented following each correct chain. These results were interpreted as evidence that the distinctive stimuli presented after correct responses functioned as conditioned reinforcers. Reductions in accuracy following an omitted distinctive stimulus indicated that they were also discriminative stimuli for correct responding in their presence.