The Explicit and Implicit Domains in Psychoanalytic Change

New research findings of the development and organization of the mind, brain, and behavior bolster the ongoing relational- or intersubjective-field paradigmatic revision of psychoanalytic theory. A multisystems view of learning, memory, and knowledge provide us with a more complex picture of information processing that has fundamental implications for a psychoanalytic theory of therapeutic action.

If the implicit and explicit learning/memory systems are viewed as parallel processes, not easily translatable from one to the other, then new implicit relational experience carries considerably more power as compared to explicit/declarative processing in changing and establishing new implicit mental models. When these cognitive processing systems are viewed as more closely interconnected with a developmental emphasis on connecting them through language, then exploratory/interpretive work becomes more central. REM, dream, infant, and cognitive research evidence suggests that imagistic symbolic capacity exists at birth. Learning and remembering using imagistic symbolic processing could suggest a more easily translatable connection with later developed verbal symbolic processing and a closer, although varied, interconnection between implicit and explicit (symbolic) memory systems.

Explicit attitudes are more directly modifiable through an explicit/declarative focus. Implicit mental models, it is proposed, are variably modifiable through two different change processes: (1) accommodation or transformation of expectancies through new implicit procedural experience (not requiring explicit focus) and (2) diminished activation and increased capacity to deactivate implicit mental models through explicit/declarative processing and the establishment of contrasting implicit models through new implicit procedural experience.     

Discussions Dynamical Explanation in Cognitive Science

Summary  Applying the concepts of dynamical systems theory to explain cognitive phenomena is still a fairly recent trend in cognitive science and its potential and consequences are not nearly mapped out. A decade ago, dynamical approaches were introduced as a paradigm shift in cognitive science and in this paper I concentrate on how to substantiate this claim. After having considered and rejected the possibility that continuous time is the crucial factor, I present Kelso’s model of a near-cognitive phenomenon which invokes self-organization as the guiding principle. Then, the explanatory strategy implicit in this approach is explicated and its underlying assumption presented. Finally, I discuss how we should characterize this explanatory framework using the notion of emergence.     

Does conceptual implicit memory develop? The role of processing demands

The author investigated the importance of processing considerations within implicit memory in a developmental design. Second-graders (n = 87) and college students (n = 81) completed perceptual (word stem completion) and conceptual (category generation) implicit memory tests after studying target items either nonsemantically (read) or semantically (generated). In support of previous research, the author found no age differences in priming in the nonsemantic study/perceptual test condition. Age differences in priming were found in the semantic study/conceptual test condition, however, where college students had significantly higher priming scores than did children. These developmental dissociations support the theory that the processing requirements of conceptual implicit memory are similar to those in explicit memory. The author also discusses the contribution of the Transfer Appropriate Processing (TAP; H. L. Roediger, D. A. Gallo, & L. Geraci, 2002) framework to understanding these findings.     

Retrieval contexts and the concreteness effect: Dissociations in memory for concrete and abstract words

Decades of research on the concreteness effect, namely better memory for concrete as compared with abstract words, suggest it is a fairly robust phenomenon. Nevertheless, little attention has been given to limiting retrieval contexts. Two experiments evaluated intentional memory for concrete and abstract word lists in three retrieval contexts: free recall, explicit word-stem completion, and implicit word-stem completion. Concreteness effects were observed in free recall and in explicit word-stem completion, but not in implicit word-stem completion. These findings are consistent with both a bidirectional version of the relational-distinctiveness processing framework (Ruiz-Vargas, Cuevas, & Marschark, 1996) and a second framework combining insights from dual coding theory (Paivio, 1971, 1986) and the transfer appropriate processing framework (Roediger, Weldon, & Challis, 1989). Also, consistent with the relational-distinctiveness framework, the second experiment suggested that concreteness effects might depend on relational processing at encoding: Concreteness effects were observed in explicit memory for related word lists but not for unrelated word lists.     

Implicit cognitive development in cultural tools and children: lessons from Maya Mexico

Zinacantec Maya weaving tools and apprenticeship practices contain an implicit theory of cognitive development that corresponds to Piaget and Inhelder’s explicit theory of cognitive development [The Child’s Conception of Space, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1956]. A set of preoperational and concrete operational spatial problems from the weaving domain provided empirical support for the ethnotheory of cognitive development implicit in Zinacantec weaving tools and their developmental sequencing. A structurally similar set of preoperational and concrete operational spatial problems were adapted from Piaget and Inhelder’s Swiss research. Both sets of problems were presented to children aged 4–13 in Nabenchauk, a Zinacantec hamlet in Chiapas, Mexico, and in Los Angeles, CA, USA. While the sequence of operational development was the same across both domains and both cultures, Zinacantec children were more precocious with the weaving problems, whereas U.S. children were more precocious with the spatial problems adapted from Piaget and Inhelder. After a brief instructional procedure, children in both Nabenchauk and Los Angeles improved on the weaving problems only, within the maturational constraints typical of concrete operational development. Nonetheless, the brief learning experience could not reverse the advantage of long-term cultural familiarity with backstrap-loom weaving. Our conclusions are threefold: (1) An implicit ethnotheory of cognitive development, built into the sequencing of cultural tools, can be as developmentally valid as an explicit formal theory. (2) Culture-general Piagetian stages are harnessed in culture-specific situations. (3) Maturational readiness interacts with both long-term cultural experience and short-term learning experience to actualize concrete operations in a specific context. Cross-context generalization of Piagetian stages is far from automatic; it requires cultural learning.     

Impetus beliefs as default heuristics: Dissociation between explicit and implicit knowledge about motion

We examined the extent to which findings from the literature on naive physics and representational momentum studies are consistent with impetus beliefs postulating imparted internal energy as a source of motion. In a literature review, we showed that, for situations in which impetus theory and physical principles make different predictions, representational momentum effects are consistent with impetus beliefs. In three new experiments, we examined people’s implicit and explicit knowledge of the effect of mass on the rate of ascending motion. The results suggest that implicit knowledge is consistent with impetus theory and is unaffected by explicit knowledge. Expert physicists, whose explicit knowledge is in accord with Newtonian principles, exhibited the same implicit impetus beliefs as novices when asked to respond in a representational momentum paradigm. We propose that, in situations in which an immediate response is required and one does not have specific contextual knowledge about an object’s motion, both physics experts and novices apply impetus principles as a default heuristic.     

Are there multiple memory systems? Tests of models of implicit and explicit memory

[Formula: see text] This article reviews recent work aimed at developing a new framework, based on signal detection theory, for understanding the relationship between explicit (e.g., recognition) and implicit (e.g., priming) memory. Within this framework, different assumptions about sources of memorial evidence can be framed. Application to experimental results provides robust evidence for a single-system model in preference to multiple-systems models. This evidence comes from several sources including studies of the effects of amnesia and ageing on explicit and implicit memory. The framework allows a range of concepts in current memory research, such as familiarity, recollection, fluency, and source memory, to be linked to implicit memory. More generally, this work emphasizes the value of modern computational modelling techniques in the study of learning and memory.     

专家记忆优势效应理论的比较

依据专家记忆优势效应三个主要理论 (即模板理论、长时工作记忆理论和限制调节理论 )的不同特点选取变量 ,以中国象棋为实验材料 ,采用 2× 2× 2× 2混合设计 ,对三个理论进行检验比较。研究发现 :(1)被试在记忆棋局条件下的包含测验成绩 ,优于选择着法条件下的 ;(2 )棋局与棋手水平之间不存在显著的交互作用 ;(3)棋局与提取时的意识水平之间存在显著的交互作用 ,对局中的外显效应大于排局中的外显效应 ,而棋局的内隐效应则无显著差异。上述结果表明 ,相对而言 ,长时工作记忆理论能够对专家记忆优势效应作出合理的解释     

Implicit memory for novel conceptual associations in amnesia

In two experiments, we evaluated the status of implicit memory for novel associations in amnesia. Experiment 1 assessed priming in a category exemplar generation task in which contextual information associated with a target could increase the likelihood of target generation. Control participants, but not amnesic patients, showed associative priming. Amnesics’ impairment was not due to the use of explicit memory by control subjects but reflected a genuine impairment in implicit memory for novel conceptual associations. Experiment 2 assessed priming in a relatedness judgment task, in which associative priming was manifest as longer latencies for old than for recombined pairs of unrelated words. Amnesic patients showed intact associative priming in this task. We discuss differences in the status of implicit memory for novel conceptual associations in amnesia, with reference to the nature of the representation that supports priming in the two tasks and the type of processing that is required at test.     

Does survival processing enhance implicit memory?

Recent research has shown that human memory may have evolved to remember information that has been processed for the purpose of survival, more so than information that has been processed for other purposes, such as home-moving. We investigated this survival-processing advantage using both explicit and implicit memory tests. In Experiment 1, participants rated words in one of three scenarios: survival, pleasantness, and moving, followed by a timed stem-cued recall/stem-cued completion task. Items were completed more quickly in the survival scenario, as compared with the other two for the explicit task, but no differences were found across conditions in the implicit task. In Experiment 2, the implicit task was changed to concreteness judgments to encourage more conceptual processing. Again, the survival-processing advantage occurred in the explicit task (speeded item recognition), but not in the implicit task. These results suggest that a survival-processing advantage may benefit participants’ memory performance only during explicit retrieval.     

Retrieval-induced forgetting in implicit memory tests: The role of test awareness

Retrieval practice with particular items in memory may result in decreased recall of different, semantically related, items. This retrieval-induced forgetting effect has been demonstrated in studies using explicit memory tests. Anderson and Spellman (1995) have attributed retrieval-induced forgetting to inhibitory mechanisms. This hypothesis predicts similar effects in implicit memory tasks. In our first experiment, using Anderson and Spellman’s original paradigm, retrieval-induced forgetting was found using an explicit memory test with independent extralist retrieval cues. In our second experiment, using the same materials, retrieval-induced forgetting was also found using an implicit memory test with independent extralist retrieval cues, but only for participants who were aware of the relationship between the study and practice phase on the one hand, and the test phase of the experiment on the other. Thus, test awareness seems to mediate retrieval-induced forgetting in implicit memory tasks.     

Reconsidering therapeutic action: Loewald, cognitive neuroscience and the integration of memory's duality

Both Loewald's relational theory of memory and the Self-Memory System (SMS) of cognitive neuroscience describe a dual memory system, one system that is experience-near sensory-perceptual, and the other, symbolic and conceptual. In contrast to perspectives that locate therapeutic action in either altering implicit procedural memories or interpreting explicit historical content, we argue that psychological health emerges from effective integration of both memory systems, achieved through a combination of transference dynamics and analytic insight. We support this position by elaborating four key assumptions of the loewaldian and SMS perspectives, followed by application to a clinical example. We highlight the power of certain integrative autobiographical memories called 'self-defining memories' in assisting an understanding of transference dynamics and providing metaphoric touchstones to guide subsequent treatment.     

On the relations between implicit and explicit spatial binding: Evidence from Balint’s syndrome

We report two experiments examining whether factors that affect binding in explicit report tasks also affect implicit binding in a patient with Balint’s syndrome, G.K. Replicating prior studies, we showed that there could be implicit binding of visual features in a patient with Balint’s syndrome who was at chance at explicitly discriminating the relations between the features. Nevertheless, when color—form relationships were coded, we showed that G.K.’s implicit binding, as well as his explicit report of binding relationships, was affected by the spatial distance between the stimuli. Similarly, we demonstrated effects of grouping on both implicit and explicit binding of the spatial relations between shapes. We interpret the qualitative similarities between implicit and explicit binding as indicating that they reflect a single process in which binding relations, initially established preattentively, are later consolidated by attention. This later process, of attentional consolidation, is disrupted in Balint’s syndrome.     

Are there multiple memory systems? Tests of models of implicit and explicit memory

This article reviews recent work aimed at developing a new framework, based on signal detection theory, for understanding the relationship between explicit (e.g., recognition) and implicit (e.g., priming) memory. Within this framework, different assumptions about sources of memorial evidence can be framed. Application to experimental results provides robust evidence for a single-system model in preference to multiple-systems models. This evidence comes from several sources including studies of the effects of amnesia and ageing on explicit and implicit memory. The framework allows a range of concepts in current memory research, such as familiarity, recollection, fluency, and source memory, to be linked to implicit memory. More generally, this work emphasizes the value of modern computational modelling techniques in the study of learning and memory.     

Models of recognition, repetition priming, and fluency: exploring a new framework

We present a new modeling framework for recognition memory and repetition priming based on signal detection theory. We use this framework to specify and test the predictions of 4 models: (a) a single-system (SS) model, in which one continuous memory signal drives recognition and priming; (b) a multiple-systems-1 (MS1) model, in which completely independent memory signals (such as explicit and implicit memory) drive recognition and priming; (c) a multiple-systems-2 (MS2) model, in which there are also 2 memory signals, but some degree of dependence is allowed between these 2 signals (and this model subsumes the SS and MS1 models as special cases); and (d) a dual-process signal detection (DPSD1) model, 1 possible extension of a dual-process theory of recognition (Yonelinas, 1994) to priming, in which a signal detection model is augmented by an independent recollection process. The predictions of the models are tested in a continuous-identification-with-recognition paradigm in both normal adults (Experiments 1-3) and amnesic individuals (using data from Conroy, Hopkins, & Squire, 2005). The SS model predicted numerous results in advance. These were not predicted by the MS1 model, though could be accommodated by the more flexible MS2 model. Importantly, measures of overall model fit favored the SS model over the others. These results illustrate a new, formal approach to testing theories of explicit and implicit memory.     

A test of the survival processing advantage in implicit and explicit memory tests

The present study was designed to investigate the survival processing effect (Nairne, Thompson, & Pandeirada, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33, 263–273, 2007) in cued implicit and explicit memory tests. The survival effect has been well established in explicit free recall and recognition tests, but has not been evident in implicit memory tests or in cued explicit tests. In Experiment 1 of the present study, we tested implicit and explicit memory for words studied in survival, moving, or pleasantness contexts in stem completion tests. In Experiment 2, we further tested these effects in implicit and explicit category production tests. Across the two experiments, with four separate memory tasks that included a total of 525 subjects, no survival processing advantage was found, replicating the results from implicit tests reported by Tse and Altarriba (Memory & Cognition, 38, 1110–1121, 2010). Thus, although the survival effect appears to be quite robust in free recall and recognition tests, it has not been replicated in cued implicit and explicit memory tests. The similar results found for the implicit and explicit tests in the present study do not support encoding elaboration explanations of the survival processing effect.     

Event-related potentials and recognition memory

According to dual-process models, recognition memory is supported by distinct retrieval processes known as familiarity and recollection. Important evidence supporting the dual-process framework has come from studies using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). These studies have identified two topographically distinct ERP correlates of recognition memory--the "parietal" and "mid-frontal" old/new effects--that are dissociated by variables that selectively modulate recollection and familiarity, respectively. We evaluate the extent to which ERP data support dual-process models in light of the proposal that recollection is a continuous rather than a discrete memory process. We also examine the claim that the putative ERP index of familiarity is a reflection of implicit rather than explicit memory. We conclude that ERP findings continue to offer strong support for the dual-process perspective.     

Mutual influences between the implicit and explicit self-concepts: The role of memory activation and motivated reasoning

Whereas previous research has predominantly focused on dissociations between the explicit and implicit self-concepts, the current research investigates how these aspects of self-representation come into correspondence through the activation of information about the self in memory. Experiment 1 provides evidence for a “bottom-up” process of self-construal in which information activated in the implicit self-concept produces congruent changes in the explicit self-concept. Experiment 2 provides evidence for a “top-down” process of self-construal in which the motivated assertion of a propositional belief in the explicit self-concept leads, via a process of confirmatory hypothesis testing, to the activation of substantiating information in the implicit self-concept. These two processes of self-concept change are integrated within a framework that specifies how the explicit and implicit self-concepts are related within an overall, dynamic self-system. Possibilities for expanding the framework to account for self-concept dissociations are discussed.     

An integrated threat model of explicit and implicit attitudes

The current study applied integrated threat theory (ITT) to the prediction of implicit and explicit attitudes toward African‐Americans. We tested models predicting attitudes from threats (intergroup anxiety, realistic, and symbolic) and antecedents to threat (contact, status, ingroup identification, and negative stereotyping). Data collected from 389 White undergraduate participants indicated that ITT is a good model for predicting both implicit and explicit attitudes. With few exceptions, antecedents predicted threats, and threats mediated the impact of antecedents on attitudes. This work adds importantly to ITT as it demonstrated common predictors of explicit and implicit attitudes, distinguished between negative and positive forms of contact, and tested a latent variable model. We discuss theoretical implications for dual process interpretations of implicit and explicit attitudes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Motor-Skill Learning in Alzheimer’s Disease: A Review with an Eye to the Clinical Practice

Since elderly people suffering from dementia want to go on living independently for as long as possible, they need to be able to maintain familiar and learn new practical skills. Although explicit or declarative learning methods are mostly used to train new skills, it is hypothesized that implicit or procedural techniques may be more effective in this population. The present review discusses 23 experimental studies on implicit motor-skill learning in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). All studies found intact implicit motor-learning capacities. Subsequently, it is elaborated how these intact learning abilities can be exploited in the patients’ rehabilitation with respect to the variables ‘practice’ and ‘feedback.’ Recommendations for future research are provided, and it is concluded that if training programs are adjusted to specific needs and abilities, older people with AD are well able to (re)learn practical motor skills, which may enhance their autonomy.