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How incidental sequence learning creates reportable knowledge: the role of unexpected events
Dennis Rünger1, Peter A Frensch
1Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Berlin, Germany. dennis.ruenger@gmail.com
Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition
|September 4, 2008
Summary
Individuals gain explicit sequence knowledge when they seek reasons for unexpected task events. Systematic disruptions, unlike random ones, facilitate this reportable knowledge acquisition during learning.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Human Learning and Memory
Background:
- Incidental sequence learning research often focuses on implicit, nonconscious processes.
- Understanding the generation of explicit, reportable sequence knowledge requires elucidating underlying cognitive mechanisms.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the cognitive mechanisms behind the generation of explicit, reportable sequence knowledge.
- To test the unexpected-event hypothesis regarding the acquisition of reportable sequence knowledge.
Main Methods:
- A modified serial reaction time task was used to experimentally induce unexpected events.
- Systematic and random transfer sequences were employed to disrupt the learning process.
- A concurrent secondary task was introduced in a final experiment to interfere with cognitive search processes.
Main Results:
- A systematic transfer sequence significantly increased the availability of reportable sequence knowledge.
- Random transfer sequences did not show a facilitative effect on reportable knowledge.
- A secondary task interfering with the search process negated the facilitative effect of systematic transfer blocks.
Conclusions:
- The unexpected-event hypothesis is supported: individuals acquire reportable knowledge by searching for causes of performance deviations.
- Systematic disruptions facilitate reportable knowledge by prompting a search process.
- Random events hinder this search process, thus impeding reportable knowledge acquisition.
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