Is implicit learning spared in amnesia? Rule abstraction and item familiarity in artificial grammar learning
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 29, 2026

Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effect of Induced Emotion on Grammar Learning
Published on: January 29, 2020
Shelley Channon1, David Shanks, Theresa Johnstone
1Subdepartment of Clinical Health Psychology, University College London, Gower Street, UK. s.channon@ucl.ac.uk
Abstract:
We examined implicit learning of an artificial grammar in amnesic and control participants. The "biconditional" grammar used to generate study and test strings allows two potential sources of judgements in artificial grammar learning to be unconfounded: participants could either learn the abstract biconditional rules or could learn about the distributional statistics of the surface elements (e.g. bigrams) composing the study items. Test strings varied these two sources orthogonally. We found no evidence of abstract rule learning either in the control or amnesic groups. In contrast, both groups learned about the surface elements and tended to call test strings "grammatical" when they were composed of familiar bigrams. However, this sensitivity to bigram familiarity was significantly reduced in the amnesic compared to the control group. The results challenge the claim that implicit learning is intact in amnesia.
More Related Videos
08:05Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques
Published on: June 30, 2020
05:15The (Spatial) Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition
Published on: February 19, 2018
Related Concept Videos
Implicit Memories
One key aspect of implicit...
Higher Mental Functions of Brain: Learning and Memory
Purposive Learning
Forgetting
Encoding...
Associative Learning
Classical conditioning, also known...
Cognitive Learning
E. C. Tolman's theory of purposive behavior emphasizes that much behavior is goal-directed. He argued that to understand behavior, we must look at the entire sequence of actions leading to a goal. For instance, high school students study hard, not just due to past reinforcement but also to achieve the goal of getting into a good college.
Tolman introduced the idea that behavior is influenced by...