Abstract analogies and abstracted grammars: Comments on Reber (1989) and Mathews et al. (1989).

Reber (1969, 1989a) and Mathews et al. (1989), in experiments on learning artificial grammars, reported good transfer to letter strings consisting of letters not used in the training stimuli, provided that the same grammar generated both training and transfer strings. They concluded from this that the transfer predominantly relies on abstract knowledge. An experiment is reported that shows much of the transfer to changed letter-set strings is due to abstract similarity between test strings and specific training stimuli (i.e., a string such as MXVVVM could be seen as similar to BDCCCB without implying that regularities common to a large number of training items had been abstracted)

[1]  N. Brody.  Unconscious learning of rules: Comment on Reber's analysis of implicit learning. , 1989 .

[2]  G. Logan.  Toward an instance theory of automatization. , 1988 .

[3]  C SchankRoger,et al.  Dynamic Memory: A Theory of Reminding and Learning in Computers and People , 1983 .

[4]  L. Brooks,et al.  Nonanalytic Cognition: Memory, Perception, and Concept Learning , 1984 .

[5]  R. Nosofsky.  Attention, similarity, and the identification-categorization relationship. , 1986, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[6]  A. Reber.  Transfer of syntactic structure in synthetic languages. , 1969 .

[7]  Douglas L. Medin,et al.  Context theory of classification learning. , 1978 .

[8]  A. Reber.  Implicit learning and tacit knowledge , 1993 .

[9]  D. Gentner.  Structure‐Mapping: A Theoretical Framework for Analogy* , 1983 .

[10]  U. Neisser.  Concepts and Conceptual Development: Ecological and Intellectual Factors in Categorization , 1989 .

[11]  A. Reber,et al.  More thoughts on the unconscious: reply to Brody and to Lewicki and Hill. , 1989, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[12]  R. A. Carlson,et al.  A case of syntactical learning and judgment: How conscious and how abstract? , 1984 .

[13]  P. Lewicki,et al.  On the status of nonconscious processes in human cognition: comment on Reber. , 1989, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[14]  Pierre Perruchet,et al.  Synthetic grammar learning: Implicit rule abstraction or explicit fragmentary knowledge? Journal of , 1990 .

[15]  Dale T. Miller,et al.  Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives , 1986 .

[16]  Arthur S. Reber,et al.  Syntactical learning and judgment, still unconscious and still abstract: Comment on Dulany, Carlson, and Dewey , 1985 .

[17]  B. Ross.  Distinguishing Types of Superficial Similarities: Different Effects on the Access and Use of Earlier Problems , 1989 .

[18]  James L. McClelland,et al.  Distributed memory and the representation of general and specific information. , 1985, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[19]  W. Estes.  Array models for category learning , 1986, Cognitive Psychology.

[20]  Douglas L. Hintzman,et al.  "Schema Abstraction" in a Multiple-Trace Memory Model , 1986 .

[21]  R. Mathews.  The Forgetting Algorithm: How Fragmentary Knowledge of Exemplars Can Abstract Knowledge , 1991 .

[22]  R. Mathews,et al.  Role of Implicit and Explicit Processes in Learning From Examples: A Synergistic Effect , 1989 .

[23]  L. Brooks,et al.  Specializing the operation of an explicit rule , 1991 .

[24]  Arthur S. Reber,et al.  On the primacy of the implicit: Comment on Perruchet and Pacteau. , 1990 .

[25]  Richard A. Carlson,et al.  On consciousness in syntactic learning and judgment: A reply to Reber, Allen, and Regan , 1985 .

[26]  James L. McClelland,et al.  An interactive activation model of context effects in letter perception: I. An account of basic findings. , 1981 .

[27]  Preservation of Specific Experiences in the Representation of General Knowledge , 1987 .

[28]  John R. Vokey,et al.  Salience of Item Knowledge in Learning Artificial Grammars , 1992 .