Patterns, chunks, and hierarchies in serial reaction-time tasks |
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Authors: | Iring Koch Joachim Hoffmann |
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Institution: | Max-Planck-Institut für psychologische Forschung, München, Germany. iring.koch@mpipf-muenchen.mpg.de |
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Abstract: | The impact of relational structures (i.e., the systematicity of relations between successive items) on incidental sequence
learning was investigated in a serial reaction-time (SRT) task while keeping constant the statistical structure. In order
to assess the influence of relational structures in stimulus and response sequences separately, the strength of relational
patterns in sequences of digits as stimuli and of keystrokes as responses was orthogonally varied. In Exps. 1 and 2, the variation
of relational patterns was mainly effective in the keystroke sequence. In Exp. 2, in addition to the variation of relational
patterns, the presentation of stimuli was delayed at serial positions that were incongruent with the relational structure.
The results show that these incongruent pauses reduced the learning of strongly structured sequences of keystrokes but improved
the learning of weakly structured sequences. Experiment 3 suggests that even higher-order relations between elementary patterns
are utilized to accelerate responses. The data are interpreted as evidence for the impact of relational patterns, in addition
to statistical redundancies, on the formation of chunks. Reasons are discussed for the finding that relational chunking was
more pronounced in the keystroke than in the digit sequences.
Received: 25 June 1998 / Accepted: 3 December 1998 |
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