Artificial Intelligence and Psychology Project

How is complex sequential material acquired, processed, and represented when there is no intention to learn ? We report on two experiments exploring a choice reaction time task. Unbeknownst to subjects, successive stimuli followed a sequence derived from a "noisy" finite-state grammar. After considerable practice (60,000 exposures) with Experiment 1, subjects acquired a compIPx kNdy n, procedural knowledge about the sequential structure of the material. Experiment 2 attempted to identify limits on subjects' ability to encode the temporal context by using more distant contingencies that spanned irrelevant material. Taken together, the results indicate that subjects become increasingly sensitive to the temporal context set by previous elements of the sequence, up to three elements. Responses are also affected by priming effects from recent trials. A PDP model that incorporates sensitivity to the sequential structure and to priming effects is shown to capture key aspects of both acquisition and processing. The model also accounts for the interaction between attention and sequence structure reported by Cohen, Ivry and Keele (1990). Learning Sequential Structure

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