The Metacognitive Implications of the Implicit-Explicit Distinction

In this chapter we establish what it is for something to be implicit. The approach to implicit knowledge is taken from Dienes and Perner (1999) and Perner and Dienes (1999), which relates the implicit-explicit distinction to knowledge representations. To be clear about exactly what our claims are we first discuss what a representation is, what it is for a representation to represent something implicitly or explicitly and apply those concepts to knowledge. Next we show how maximally explicit knowledge is naturally associated with consciousness (according to the higher order thought theory). Then we discuss the relationships between explicit knowledge and metacognition, where metacognition is considered in terms of both its monitoring and control aspects, to shed light on conscious and unconscious perception, episodic memory, and volitional control. We will then show how implicit learning should be viewed in metacognitive terms, and conclude that people’s relative lack of metaknowledge in implicit learning paradigms justifies the claim that people have acquired genuinely implicit knowledge.