汉语声调水平映射规则的内隐学习及其长度迁移效应

内隐学习领域关注的重要问题是被试能够习得何种结构及其相应的学习机制。远距离规则的研究为澄清这一问题提供了新的视角。现有研究已证实被试能够内隐地习得并迁移固定长度的远距离规则。按照内隐学习抽象性的观点,如果被试习得的是远距离的抽象规则本身,那么迁移也同时会发生在不同长度的材料上。因此,研究以独特的汉语声调水平映射规则为材料,通过对表面特征与底层规则之间的分离操作,探讨声调水平映射规则的内隐习得和长度迁移,结果表明被试不仅能够习得这一规则,还能够将该规则灵活迁移到不同长度的材料上,进一步为内隐学习的抽象性特点和无限性的学习机制提供强有力的新证据。     

汉语声调远距离规则的内隐学习及其迁移效应

内隐学习研究领域的一个重要问题是内隐学习获得的知识究竟是什么,即内隐学习获得的知识究竟是底层的抽象规则还是表面的特征.研究以汉语声调的远距离水平映射这一远距离规则为材料,通过对表面特征和底层规则之间的分离操作,在控制组块和重复结构等表面特征的条件下,探讨声调远距离规则的习得和迁移,结果发现被试能够内隐地习得和迁移汉语平仄声调的水平映射规则,证实了内隐学习确实能够获得底层的抽象规则,为内隐学习的抽象性问题提供了新的证据.     

The nature of the memory buffer in implicit learning: Learning Chinese tonal symmetries

Previous research has established that people can implicitly learn chunks, which (in terms of formal language theory) do not require a memory buffer to process. The present study explores the implicit learning of nonlocal dependencies generated by higher than finite-state grammars, specifically, Chinese tonal retrogrades (i.e. centre embeddings generated from a context-free grammar) and inversions (i.e. cross-serial dependencies generated from a mildly context-sensitive grammar), which do require buffers (for example, last in-first out and first in-first out, respectively). People were asked to listen to and memorize artificial poetry instantiating one of the two grammars; after this training phase, people were informed of the existence of rules and asked to classify new poems, while providing attributions of the basis of their judgments. People acquired unconscious structural knowledge of both tonal retrogrades and inversions. Moreover, inversions were implicitly learnt more easily than retrogrades constraining the nature of the memory buffer in computational models of implicit learning.     

先前知识经验对远距离水平映射规则内隐学习的限制

先前研究发现远距离规则能够被内隐地习得和迁移,表明内隐学习获得的知识是底层的抽象规则,那么这一抽象规则的习得和迁移是否会受到先前知识经验的限制?研究采用汉语声调的远距离水平映射规则为材料,通过创设不符合平仄知识经验的任意声调水平映射规则,在控制组块和重复结构等表面特征的条件下,探讨先前知识经验是否限制了远距离水平映射规则的内隐学习和迁移。结果发现相对于符合平仄知识经验的汉语声调水平映射规则,被试不能够内隐地习得和迁移任意声调的水平映射规则,表明先前知识经验在远距离水平映射规则内隐学习过程中发挥着重要作用。     

Implicit learning of mappings between forms and metaphorical meanings

Previous research has shown that people can implicitly acquire mappings between word forms and literal meanings (Williams, 2004, Williams, 2005). We argue, from the metaphor-representation and embodiment perspectives, that people can unconsciously establish mappings between word forms and not only literal but also metaphorical meanings. Using Williams’ (2005) paradigm, we found that transfer of form-meaning connections from a concrete domain (space) to an abstract domain (power) was achieved in a metaphor-consistent way without awareness. Our results support the view that unconscious knowledge can be flexibly deployed in an abstract way not previously explored in the implicit learning literature.     

Can musical transformations be implicitly learned?

The dominant theory of what people can learn implicitly is that they learn chunks of adjacent elements in sequences. A type of musical grammar that goes beyond specifying allowable chunks is provided by serialist or 12-tone music. The rules constitute operations over variables and could not be appreciated as such by a system that can only chunk elements together. A series of studies investigated the extent to which people could implicitly (or explicitly) learn the structures of serialist music. We found that people who had no background in atonal music did not learn the structures, but highly selected participants with an interest in atonal music could implicitly learn to detect melodies instantiating the structures. The results have implications for both theorists of implicit learning and composers who may wish to know which structures they put into a piece of music can be appreciated.     

Unconscious structural knowledge of form-meaning connections

We investigated the implicit learning of a linguistically relevant variable (animacy) in a natural language context (namely, the relation of forms of determiners to semantics). Trial by trial subjective measures indicated that exposure to a form–animacy regularity led to unconscious knowledge of that regularity. Under the same conditions, people did not learn about another form–meaning regularity when a linguistically arbitrary variable was used instead of animacy (size relative to a dog). Implicit learning is constrained to acquire unconscious knowledge about features with high prior probabilities of being relevant in that domain.     

Implicit learning of second-, third-, and fourth-order adjacent and nonadjacent sequential dependencies

Serial reaction time (SRT) task studies have established that people can implicitly learn first- and second-order adjacent dependencies. Sequential confounds have made it impossible to draw conclusions regarding learning of nonadjacent dependencies and learning of third- and fourth-order adjacent dependencies. Addressing the confounds, the present study shows that people can implicitly learn second-, third-, and fourth-order adjacent and nonadjacent dependencies embedded in probabilistic sequences of target locations.     

Implicit learning of second-, third-, and fourth-order adjacent and nonadjacent sequential dependencies

Serial reaction time (SRT) task studies have established that people can implicitly learn first- and second-order adjacent dependencies. Sequential confounds have made it impossible to draw conclusions regarding learning of nonadjacent dependencies and learning of third- and fourth-order adjacent dependencies. Addressing the confounds, the present study shows that people can implicitly learn second-, third-, and fourth-order adjacent and nonadjacent dependencies embedded in probabilistic sequences of target locations.     

Psychological reality of cross-media artistic styles

The sensitivity of artistically naive people to cross-media styles (baroque, neoclassic, and romantic) and to period styles (works composed by artists born during the same epoch) in four media (painting, poetry, music, and architecture) was assessed. In two studies, adult subjects tended spontaneously to sort stimuli according to both cross-media styles and period styles. In a third study, nursery school children were shown to be able to sort pictures of paintings and architectural facades on the basis of cross-media styles. Other experiments using rating scales again demonstrated that artistically naive adults are sensitive to both cross-media styles and period styles even when they are not implicitly urged to disregard medium. These and other studies using rating scales suggested that the bases for discrimination of both cross-media styles and period styles are the dimensions of realistic versus unrealistic and of overall arousal potential.     

远距离规则的内隐学习使用了何种记忆存储器：来自神经网络模拟的证据

关于远距离规则的知识是如何被内隐学习的,研究尚未得出结论。该研究通过采用和人类被试相同的实验材料和程序,考察了简单循环网络模型（SRN）对两种汉语声调远距离规则——倒映和逆行规则的内隐学习。结果发现：1.在广泛的参数范围上,SRN能够学会倒映和逆行规则,表明模型的记忆缓冲器可以模拟人类远距离规则的内隐学习;2.SRN对倒映规则的学习比对逆行规则的学习更好,表明在功能上远距离规则的内隐学习可能优先使用了先进先出的记忆存储器及信息加工模式。该研究为探究远距离规则内隐学习的机制提供了新的证据和视角。     

Turn-frogs and careful-sweaters: Non-conscious perception of incongruous word pairings provokes fluid compensation

The meaning maintenance model (MMM) maintains that violations of expectations can elicit compensatory behavior. When anomalies are encountered, people may compensate either by affirming an intact schema or by abstracting new, meaningful connections. Past research has shown that implicitly perceived events can be threatening, and can cause changes to behavior that were not consciously intended. However, no research has yet explored whether fluid compensation responses can occur implicitly, in response to an implicit threat. This paper introduces a novel meaning threat and provides evidence that both threat and response can happen entirely outside conscious awareness. Two studies present participants with subliminally incoherent word pairs (e.g., turn-frog). Study 1 finds that these subliminal presentations enhance the ability to implicitly learn new patterns. Study 2 finds that these same presentations lead to the affirmation of an unrelated moral schema, and to the same extent as a subliminal mortality salience manipulation.     

The profile of abstract rule learning in infancy: Meta‐analytic and experimental evidence

Everyone agrees that infants possess general mechanisms for learning about the world, but the existence and operation of more specialized mechanisms is controversial. One mechanism—rule learning—has been proposed as potentially specific to speech, based on findings that 7‐month‐olds can learn abstract repetition rules from spoken syllables (e.g. ABB patterns: wo‐fe‐fe, ga‐tu‐tu…) but not from closely matched stimuli, such as tones. Subsequent work has shown that learning of abstract patterns is not simply specific to speech. However, we still lack a parsimonious explanation to tie together the diverse, messy, and occasionally contradictory findings in that literature. We took two routes to creating a new profile of rule learning: meta‐analysis of 20 prior reports on infants’ learning of abstract repetition rules (including 1,318 infants in 63 experiments total), and an experiment on learning of such rules from a natural, non‐speech communicative signal. These complementary approaches revealed that infants were most likely to learn abstract patterns from meaningful stimuli. We argue that the ability to detect and generalize simple patterns supports learning across domains in infancy but chiefly when the signal is meaningfully relevant to infants’ experience with sounds, objects, language, and people.     

Implicit learning of semantic preferences of English words by Chinese learners

The aim of the present study was to explore whether Chinese learners could implicitly learn the semantic preferences of novel English words. In training, participants learned four novel verbs and were exposed to a set of verb-noun phrases that included these new words. What the participants were not told was that the use of the verbs depended on the concreteness of the nouns (i.e., the semantic preference rule). In testing, participants were required to choose between two possible verbs (one of which violated the semantic preference rule) for nouns that never occurred in training. The results showed that participants acquired unconscious knowledge of semantic preferences under incidental learning conditions, as measured by verbal reports and structural knowledge attributions. Our results provide further evidence for implicit learning of semantic preferences, suggesting that implicit learning is an important mechanism in the acquisition of L2 collocations.     

Implicit learning of fifth- and sixth-order sequential probabilities

Serial reaction time (SRT) task studies have established that people can implicitly learn sequential contingencies as complex as fourth-order probabilities. The present study examined people’s ability to learn fifth-order (Experiment 1) and sixth-order (Experiment 2) probabilities. Remarkably, people learned fifth- and sixth-order probabilities. This suggests that the implicit sequence learning mechanism can operate over a range of at least seven sequence elements.     

神经网络模型对内隐学习的探索

近几年来,研究者们借助人工神经网络模型的方法对内隐学习研究中突出的争论性问题进行了新的探索。针对内隐学习的无意识问题,模拟研究发现确实存在一种无意识的内隐学习,然而这种无意识加工的发生与否要取决于规则的难易程度;针对内隐学习的抽象性问题,人工神经网络模型所主张的分布式概率表征能较好地加以解释。可见,神经网络模型的原理和模拟研究可能为真正地解决内隐学习的无意识性和抽象性等目前争论较多的领域提供一个全新的视角和研究方向。     

Learning non-local dependencies

This paper addresses the nature of the temporary storage buffer used in implicit or statistical learning. Kuhn and Dienes [Kuhn, G., and Dienes, Z. (2005). Implicit learning of nonlocal musical rules: implicitly learning more than chunks. Journal of Experimental Psychology-Learning Memory and Cognition, 31(6) 1417-1432] showed that people could implicitly learn a musical rule that was solely based on non-local dependencies. These results seriously challenge models of implicit learning that assume knowledge merely takes the form of linking adjacent elements (chunking). We compare two models that use a buffer to allow learning of long distance dependencies, the Simple Recurrent Network (SRN) and the memory buffer model. We argue that these models - as models of the mind - should not be evaluated simply by fitting them to human data but by determining the characteristic behaviour of each model. Simulations showed for the first time that the SRN could rapidly learn non-local dependencies. However, the characteristic performance of the memory buffer model rather than SRN more closely matched how people came to like different musical structures. We conclude that the SRN is more powerful than previous demonstrations have shown, but it's flexible learned buffer does not explain people's implicit learning (at least, the affective learning of musical structures) as well as fixed memory buffer models do.     

Symmetry, repetition, and figural goodness: an investigation of the weight of evidence theory

Considerable evidence has accumulated on the superiority of symmetry over repetition in the study of figural goodness. The Weight of Evidence theory of figural goodness (WoE) provides a mathematically rigorous, elegant, and testable account of how factors like symmetry and repetition affect figural goodness. In this study we investigate implications of the WoE approach. More specifically, we examine (1) embedded patterns versus simple elements, (2) the number of elements in a pattern, and (3) long-range dependencies within a pattern. Data from two experiments illustrate cases in which figures made of simple repetitions have higher figural goodness than some kinds of symmetrical patterns; thus, the generality of the symmetry over repetition phenomenon is questioned. We discuss our results with respect to WoE and suggest ways to further develop the theory.     

How implicit is visual statistical learning?

In visual statistical learning, participants learn the statistical regularities present in a sequence of visual shapes. A recent study (Kim, Seitz, Feenstra, & Shams, 2009) suggests that visual statistical learning occurs implicitly, as it is not accompanied by conscious awareness of these regularities. However, that interpretation of the data depends on 2 unwarranted assumptions concerning the nature and sensitivity of the tasks used to measure learning. In a replication of this study, we used a 4-choice completion task as a direct measure of learning, in addition to an indirect measure consisting of a rapid serial visual presentation task. Moreover, binary confidence judgments were recorded after each completion trial. This way, we measured systematically the extent to which sequence knowledge was available to consciousness. Supporting the notion that the role of unconscious knowledge was overestimated in Kim et al.'s study, our results reveal that participants' performance cannot be exclusively accounted for by implicit knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Nonconscious temporal cognition: Learning rhythms implicitly

Two experiments demonstrate that people can implicitly learn rhythms. Participants responded to a series of fast-paced beeps by pressing a key as soon as possible after each beep. They were not told that the duration (180, 450, or 1,125 msec) between each keypress and the next beep was specified by a repeating sequence. In both experiments, participants responded significantly faster to predictable, sequenced timing than to random timing but did not show more knowledge of the sequence than did control participants on explicit memory measures. This dissociation was obtained even with an explicit memory test in Experiment 2 that maintained the same context and response metric as the implicit task to maximize the transfer of relevant knowledge. Implications for temporal cognition are discussed.