Implicit learning in problem solving : The role of working memory capacity

Participants solving the Balls and Boxes puzzle for the first time were slowed in proportion to the level of working memory (WM) reduction resulting from a concurrent secondary task. On a second and still challenging solution of the same puzzle, performance was greatly improved, and the same WM load did not impair problem-solving efficiency. Thus, the effect of WM capacity reduction was selective for the first solution of the puzzle, indicating that learning to solve the puzzle, a vital part of the first solution, is slowed by the secondary WM-loading task. Retrospective verbal reports, tests of specific puzzle knowledge, and a recognition test of potential strategies all indicated that participants were unaware of their knowledge of the puzzle, suggesting that it had been learned implicitly. Concurrent protocols collected from participants supported this conclusion and further suggested that participants were not aware of learning to solve the puzzle as this learning occurred. These results provide evidence that implicit learning depends on WM capacity and that implicit memory can play an important role in problem solving. Starting with the original conception of problem solving as search through a problem space presented by Newell and Simon (1972), progressively more complex models and theories of problem solving have provided increasingly detailed accounts of human problem-solving behavior. These theories of problem solving universally assume a long-term knowledge store of rules and problem-solving strategies and a separate working memory (WM) that provides limited processing space for the evaluation of strategies and planning of operator application (e.g., move) sequences. The limited capacity of WM makes it possible to investigate the interaction of memory and problem-solving processes through manipulation (e.g., reduction) of WM capacity. However, recent work on the neurological basis of memory has shown that the canonical separation of memory into two components (WM and long-term memory) significantly underestimates the complexity of human memory. A number of studies of the phenomena of implicit learning and preserved learning in patients with anterograde amnesia (cf. Seger, 1994, and Squire, Knowlton, & Musen, 1993, for reviews) have provided convergent evidence that there are several long-term memory stores dependent on different

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