内隐知识具有抽象性吗?——来自内隐序列学习迁移的证据

内隐知识是否具有抽象和概括性,已有研究有着不同的争议,而迁移是检验习得知识是否具有抽象性的有效手段。探索RSI从0 ms至1000 ms中5种条件下内隐序列学习的迁移差异,并试图证实随着RSI的变化,迁移发生从无到有的变化,以迁移来证明内隐知识的抽象性。结果发现:随着RSI的增加,迁移出现了从无到有的质变,证明了内隐知识可具有抽象性;内隐序列学习效应和转移组段的新异刺激效应共同促进了迁移的产生,纯粹的内隐序列学习是产生迁移的必要非充分条件,转移组段(新异刺激)则加速促进了内隐知识的学习;本实验条件下产生的不可知但可迁移的内隐知识具有边缘意识特点。     

高低情感开放性者概率内隐序列学习进程差异

大五人格情感开放性子量表(openness/feeling)能否预测内隐序列学习的问题存在争议。本研究采用概率性内隐序列学习范式, 比较高低情感开放性者在各反应刺激间隔(response stimulus interval, 即RSI)的差异。发现：(1) RSI = 0 ms和250 ms, 高分组在转移组块后习得高概率序列, RSI = 500 ms及以上在其之前习得; 所有RSI点低分组都在其之前习得。每个RSI点只有高分组习得低概率序列。证明随RSI增加两者内隐进程有本质差异, openness/feeling子量表可预测内隐序列学习个体差异。(2)低概率序列可作为测量概率性内隐序列学习及个体差异的新指标, 经典转移组块、再认、生成任务的测量效果却十分有限。     

关于内隐学习和实验研究

内隐学习是直觉地获得复杂环境刺激知识的过程,它产生抽象的、无法言表的、表征刺激内部结构的知识。这种知识能在没有意识努力的情况下理想地获得,可用于在新的情景中解决问题和准确决策。 Reber(1965,1967)提出内隐学习(Implicit Learning)术语来表示人们怎样直觉地获得复杂环境刺激的内在结构的知识,他指出内隐学习是:1,一种无意识过程,2,产生抽象的内隐知识,内隐知识是归纳刺激内在结构的抽象表征的结果,不需要有意识的,思考性的学习策略。此后,Reber、Allen、Regan等人研究认为:内隐学习是一个普遍的过程;是发展抽象的、无法言表的知识的基本过程;这些知识可用于内隐地解决问题、在新异的环境中作出决策,此外,它还涉及到各种认识论课题。国内有连淑芳(1990)语族相似性影响内隐学习及内隐与外显过程的相互关系的研究,杨治良(1990)对内隐学习效果、反应偏向、回忆效应的研究。本文试图介绍内隐学习的研究成果、现状、新的研究方向及有关争论。     

内隐序列学习意识的具身机制

内隐序列学习意识已有三类理论如全局工作平台理论、神经可塑性理论、新异刺激理论都忽略了身体感受的关键因素, 难以揭示意识产生的根本原因。具身意识理论和研究发现, 运动/情感镜像神经元系统及与自我、认知控制系统的交互, 是初级/高级意识产生的本源, 但未涉及内隐序列学习规则意识这个对人类学习认知至关重要的领域。内隐序列学习研究实质上已接近揭示其学习机制正是感知觉运动具身学习, 其意识机制很可能是感知觉运动/情感具身意识, 并且其意识加工脑区与具身意识脑区有关键重合。未来研究可采用Granger因果大脑网络技术证明内隐序列学习意识的具身本源, 并考察已有三类意识理论的具身基础, 以及探索意识影响因素的具身机制。     

序列位置内隐学习产生机制的实验研究

内隐学习是当今认知和学习领域继内隐记忆之后又一重要的研究课题。该研究利用序列反应时研究程式,通过两个实验,对序列位置内隐学习产生的机制进行了探讨。结果表明：（１）在序列反应时任务程式中,随着反应一刺激间隔的延长,序列位置内隐学习的学习量逐渐减少;（２）异形同模式迁移组和异形异模式迁移组被试间内隐学习量无显著差异,被试未能内隐地习得抽象的序列模式。说明序列位置内隐学习产生的基础是水平联结,在该实验条件下没有发现垂直联结存在的证据。     

内隐序列学习表征机制探究：眼动证据

内隐序列学习的表征机制是内隐学习研究领域的基本问题, 还存在争议。采用眼动追踪技术, 通过3个实验探讨内隐序列学习的表征机制。结果发现, 知觉序列混合眼跳和反应序列混合眼跳条件下发生序列学习; 朝向眼跳和反向眼跳条件下发生序列学习; 有、无分心反向眼跳下发生序列学习, 两者序列学习量差异不显著。整个研究表明, 内隐序列学习的表征依赖于序列信息。     

序列学习中的内隐学习效应

该研究采用较为复杂的包含图形出现的位置规则和顺序规则的实验材料,通过对比被试直接测验和间接测验、内隐学习和外显学习成绩的异同,考察了序列学习中的内隐学习效应,并探讨了规则特点对内隐学习效应的影响。结果表明,在图形位置的序列学习中存在内隐学习效应,内隐学习效应的大小受规则特点的影响。     

样例数量对内隐序列学习的影响

本研究采用序列学习范式,探讨了样例数量对内隐序列学习的影响,以揭示意识在学习中的作用以及内隐学习获得的知识表征。研究发现,在内隐序列学习中：（1）被试既可以记忆具体的样例知识也可以抽取抽象的规则知识;（2）样例数量影响被试对样例和规则知识的获得,在样例较少时被试可以获得更多的样例和规则知识;（3）样例数量影响被试对意识知识的获得,在本研究中仅当样例数为4时被试获得了有关样例和规则的意识知识。     

内隐序列学习的研究进展

内隐序列学习是内隐学习的一种重要形式。该文回顾和总结了内隐序列学习研究的诸多方面,包括内隐序列学习的一般影响因素、内隐序列学习与意识的关系、内隐序列学习的心理机制、序列知识的心理表征、序列学习的神经基础,以及内隐序列学习与年龄的关系等,并对最近可能进行的研究进行了展望。     

复杂规则内隐学习机制的实验研究

本研究利用传统的概念形成实验,在内隐指导语下进行实验,试图检验概念形成中的内隐学习效应,并讨论概念复杂程度与内隐学习效率之间的关系,从而初步探讨复杂规则获得中的“内隐表征”机制。我们的基本假设是：概念形成中的内隐学习是对具体刺激特征的表征过程;内隐学习只能一定程度上掌握复杂规则中的一部分。     

Social intuition as a form of implicit learning: Sequences of body movements are learned less explicitly than letter sequences

In the current paper, we first evaluate the suitability of traditional serial reaction time (SRT) and artificial grammar learning (AGL) experiments for measuring implicit learning of social signals. We then report the results of a novel sequence learning task which combines aspects of the SRT and AGL paradigms to meet our suggested criteria for how implicit learning experiments can be adapted to increase their relevance to situations of social intuition. The sequences followed standard finite-state grammars. Sequence learning and consciousness of acquired knowledge were compared between 2 groups of 24 participants viewing either sequences of individually presented letters or sequences of body-posture pictures, which were described as series of yoga movements. Participants in both conditions showed above-chance classification accuracy, indicating that sequence learning had occurred in both stimulus conditions. This shows that sequence learning can still be found when learning procedures reflect the characteristics of social intuition. Rule awareness was measured using trial-by-trial evaluation of decision strategy (Dienes & Scott, 2005; Scott & Dienes, 2008). For letters, sequence classification was best on trials where participants reported responding on the basis of explicit rules or memory, indicating some explicit learning in this condition. For body-posture, classification was not above chance on these types of trial, but instead showed a trend to be best on those trials where participants reported that their responses were based on intuition, familiarity, or random choice, suggesting that learning was more implicit. Results therefore indicate that the use of traditional stimuli in research on sequence learning might underestimate the extent to which learning is implicit in domains such as social learning, contributing to ongoing debate about levels of conscious awareness in implicit learning.     

Taking patterns for chunks: is there any evidence of chunk learning in continuous serial reaction-time tasks?

When exposed to a regular sequence, people learn to exploit its predictable structure. There have been two major ways of thinking about learning under these conditions: either as the acquisition of general statistical information about the transition probabilities displayed by the sequence or as a process of memorizing and using separate chunks that can later become progressively composed with extended practice. Even though chunk learning has been adopted by some theories of skill acquisition as their main building block, the evidence for chunk formation is scarce in some areas, and is especially so in the continuous serial reaction-time (SRT) task, which has become a major research tool in the study of implicit learning. This article presents a reappraisal, replication and extension of an experiment that stands so far as one of the few alleged demonstrations of chunk learning in the SRT task (Koch and Hoffmann, Psychological Res., 63:22–35, 2000). It shows that the effects which were taken as evidence for chunk learning can indeed be obtained before any systematic training and thus surely reflect a preexistent tendency rather than a learned outcome. Further analyses of the effects after extended practice confirm that this tendency remains essentially unchanged over continuous training unlike what could be expected from a chunk-based account of sequence learning.     

Fringe consciousness in sequence learning: the influence of individual differences

We first describe how the concept of “fringe consciousness” ([Mangan, 1993a], [Mangan, 1993b], [Mangan, 2001] and [Mangan, 2003]) can characterise gradations of consciousness between the extremes of implicit and explicit learning. We then show that the NEO-PI-R personality measure of openness to feelings, chosen to reflect the ability to introspect on fringe feelings, influences both learning and awareness in the serial reaction time (SRT) task under conditions that have previously been associated with implicit learning ([Destrebecqz and Cleeremans, 2001] and [Destrebecqz and Cleeremans, 2003]). This provides empirical evidence for the proposed phenomenology and functional role of fringe consciousness in so-called implicit learning paradigms (Mangan, 1993b). Introducing an individual difference variable also helped to identify possible limitations of the exclusion task as a measure of conscious sequence knowledge. Further exploration of individual differences in fringe awareness may help to avoid polarity in the implicit learning debate, and to resolve apparent inconsistencies between previous SRT studies.     

Attentional load and implicit sequence learning

A widely employed conceptualization of implicit learning hypothesizes that it makes minimal demands on attentional resources. This conjecture was investigated by comparing learning under single-task and dual-task conditions in the sequential reaction time (SRT) task. Participants learned probabilistic sequences, with dual-task participants additionally having to perform a counting task using stimuli that were targets in the SRT display. Both groups were then tested for sequence knowledge under single-task (Experiments 1 and 2) or dual-task (Experiment 3) conditions. Participants also completed a free generation task (Experiments 2 and 3) under inclusion or exclusion conditions to determine if sequence knowledge was conscious or unconscious in terms of its access to intentional control. The experiments revealed that the secondary task impaired sequence learning and that sequence knowledge was consciously accessible. These findings disconfirm both the notion that implicit learning is able to proceed normally under conditions of divided attention, and that the acquired knowledge is inaccessible to consciousness. A unitary framework for conceptualizing implicit and explicit learning is proposed.     

Impaired skill learning in patients with severe closed-head injury as demonstrated by the serial reaction time (SRT) task

A group of 20 patients who sustained closed-head injury (CHI) and a matched control group of 20 individuals were tested on the serial reaction time (SRT) task. Three different sequence-learning measures were generated from the task: two implicit and one explicit. The two implicit sequence-learning measures include: (1) the learning rate on the first five blocks of the repeated sequence, assumed to reflect primarily general reaction time learning, and (2) the difference between the fifth block of the repeated sequence and the sixth block, a random sequence that reflects implicit sequence-specific learning. In addition, an explicit measure of sequence learning was generated. The results indicate that the CHI group was impaired on the explicit measure of sequence learning. The groups did not differ on general reaction time learning, one of the implicit measures of sequence learning. However, the control group was superior to the CHI group in learning the specific sequence repeated in the SRT task. This pattern of results is unique to the CHI group, corresponding with neither that of amnesic patients nor with that of patients with dysfunction of the basal ganglia (i.e., Parkinson's diseases).     

Visual statistical learning produces implicit and explicit knowledge about temporal order information and scene chunks: Evidence from direct and indirect measures

We examined whether visual statistical learning (VSL) produced implicit and/or explicit knowledge about temporal order information and scene chunks, using a rapid serial visual presentation target detection task and a two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) familiarity test as indirect and direct measures of VSL, respectively. In the familiarization phase, participants viewed a visual stream of natural scenes consisting of four triplets (i.e., three images that always appeared in the same order). In the subsequent target detection task, participants were required to detect target items embedded in a stream of 12 images or 12 words representing each natural scene. In the final 2AFC familiarity test, participants observed two test sequences (statistically related triplets vs. unrelated foils) and decided whether the first or second sequence was more familiar based on the familiarization phase. In both test phases, we included the same (forward) and reverse (backward) order of scenes as presented during the familiarization phase to examine whether the expression of VSL was based on temporal order of scenes or scene chunks. The results of the target detection task showed a learning effect for both temporal order in the forward condition and chunks in the backward condition, irrespective of whether stimuli were images or words; in contrast, we did not observe a learning effect in the backward condition for scene images in the familiarity test. Our findings are compatible with a learning mechanism that has both implicit and explicit components based on temporal order information and scene chunks.     

What is the impact of the explicit knowledge of sequence regularities on both deterministic and probabilistic serial reaction time task performance?

The aim of this study was to explore the role of prior explicit sequence knowledge by comparing its influence on serial reaction time (SRT) performance with either a deterministic or a probabilistic sequence. The results confirm that, with a deterministic sequence, preliminary explicit learning improves SRT performance. On the other hand, with a probabilistic sequence, the results show no advantage for SRT performance in explicit-learning conditions. In addition, by using the process dissociation procedure (Jacoby, 1991), we show that performance on a subsequent generation task was more sustained by controlled processes for participants in the explicit-learning conditions than for those in the incidental condition. On the whole, these results, showing that the influence of explicit knowledge can be suppressed in certain specific conditions, are consistent with the intervention of both implicit and explicit mechanisms in SRT tasks, and the results also show that their relative influence can be modulated by the particular demands of the task.     

Serial reaction time learning in preschool- and school-age children

Visuomotor sequence learning was assessed in 4- to 10-year-old children using a serial reaction time (SRT) task with both random and sequenced trials. One-half of the children received exposure to the sequence prior to performing the reaction time (RT) task. In Experiment 1, 7- and 10-year-old children demonstrated sequence-specific decreases in RT. As in the adult SRT literature, participants with explicit awareness of the sequence at the end of the session showed larger sequence-specific reaction time decrements than those without explicit awareness. Contrary to expectation, preexposure to the sequence did not reliably predict the level of awareness attained. Results from Experiment 2 indicate that 4-year-olds also demonstrate significant sequence learning on a variant of the SRT task. This article provides preliminary data regarding developmental changes in sequential learning and the development and use of implicit and explicit knowledge. Age-related differences emerged primarily in explicit rather than implicit knowledge.     

Qualitative differences between implicit and explicit sequence learning

Four experiments investigate the differences between implicit and explicit sequence learning concerning their resilience to structural and superficial task changes. A superficial change that embedded the SRT task in the context of a selection task, while maintaining the sequence, did selectively hinder the expression of implicit learning. In contrast, a manipulation that maintained the task surface, but decreased the sequence validity, affected the expression of learning specifically when it was explicit. These results are discussed in the context of a dynamic framework (Cleeremans & Jiménez, 2002), which assumes that implicit knowledge is specially affected by contextual factors and that, as knowledge becomes explicit, it allows for the development of relevant metaknowledge that modulates the expression of explicit knowledge.