On learning complex procedural knowledge.

Lewicki, Czyzewska, and Hoffman (1987) demonstrated learning without awareness in a visual search task. Rules determined target location on every seventh trial on the basis of target locations in the preceding six trials. Learning was demonstrated by negative transfer effects when the rules were changed. When questioned afterwards, the subjects could not describe the rules and denied awareness of them. This experiment was designed to replicate that of Lewicki et al. and to test several hypotheses about this apparent learning without awareness. Transfer conditions were included to determine whether rule learning was primarily perceptual or motor. The present assessment of awareness was based on an objective definition of awareness, rather than a subjective definition as in Lewicki et al.'s study. Their effect was replicated, and the transfer conditions revealed that learning relied on perceptual aspects of the task. The objective measure of awareness provided further evidence that subjects were unaware of the rules.

[1]  K. Lashley.  The problem of serial order in behavior , 1951 .

[2]  L. A. Jeffress,et al.  Cerebral Mechanisms in Behavior , 1953 .

[3]  C. W. Eriksen.  Figments, fantasies, and follies: a search for the subconscious mind. , 1962, Journal of personality.

[4]  D. Noton,et al.  Eye movements and visual perception. , 1971, Scientific American.

[5]  R W Pew,et al.  Levels of analysis in motor control. , 1974, Brain research.

[6]  M. Posner,et al.  Orienting of Attention* , 1980, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[7]  Donald A. Norman,et al.  Simulating a Skilled Typist: A Study of Skilled Cognitive-Motor Performance , 1982, Cogn. Sci..

[8]  Day Bl,et al.  Two strategies for learning a visually guided motor task. , 1982 .

[9]  I. Franks.  Rehearsal and Learning of Embedded Movement Sequences during a Tracking Task , 1982, Perceptual and Motor Skills.

[10]  G. Logan.  Skill and automaticity: Relations, implications, and future directions. , 1985 .

[11]  P. Merikle,et al.  Consciousness is a “subjective” state , 1986, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[12]  Pawel Lewicki,et al.  Nonconscious Social Information Processing , 1986 .

[13]  Daniel Holender,et al.  Semantic activation without conscious identification in dichotic listening, parafoveal vision, and visual masking: A survey and appraisal , 1986, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[14]  H. Hoffman,et al.  Unconscious acquisition of complex procedural knowledge. , 1987 .

[15]  M. Nissen,et al.  Attentional requirements of learning: Evidence from performance measures , 1987, Cognitive Psychology.

[16]  Pawel Lewicki,et al.  Acquisition of procedural knowledge about a pattern of stimuli that cannot be articulated , 1988, Cognitive Psychology.