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Updated: Apr 5, 2026

Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques
Published on: June 30, 2020
Investigating implicit statistical learning mechanisms through contextual cueing
Annabelle Goujon1, André Didierjean2, Simon Thorpe3
1Centre de Recherche Cerveau et Cognition (CerCo), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Paul Sabatier, 31052 Toulouse, France; Laboratoire de Psychologie, Université de Franche-Comté, 25000 Besançon, France.
Abstract:
Since its inception, the contextual cueing (CC) paradigm has generated considerable interest in various fields of cognitive sciences because it constitutes an elegant approach to understanding how statistical learning (SL) mechanisms can detect contextual regularities during a visual search. In this article we review and discuss five aspects of CC: (i) the implicit nature of learning, (ii) the mechanisms involved in CC, (iii) the mediating factors affecting CC, (iv) the generalization of CC phenomena, and (v) the dissociation between implicit and explicit CC phenomena. The findings suggest that implicit SL is an inherent component of ongoing processing which operates through clustering, associative, and reinforcement processes at various levels of sensory-motor processing, and might result from simple spike-timing-dependent plasticity.
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