Analogical inference: The role of awareness in abstract learning

The acquisition and flexible expression of complex relations is often attributed to declarative memory processes. The extent to which such tasks may be done implicitly has not been sufficiently explored. We report that analogical or transfer processes may be accomplished implicitly. Our analogy task requires acquisition of a transverse patterning set, and then tests for transfer on an unrelated set. Participants learn the relations A>B (given a choice between A and B choose A) and B>C and the unrelated set X>Y and Y>Z. Only the experimental group was trained on the transverse pair C>A. At test all trials are unreinforced: A?B, B?C, A?C, X?Y, Y?Z, X?Z. Analogy was observed when the experimental group chose Z>X at greater frequency than controls who uniformly chose X>Z. Analogy occurred with or without awareness of the transfer. The capacity to transfer relations to an analogous set demonstrates a level of flexibility and abstraction not generally thought to be possible for implicit processes.

[1]  L. Squire.  The organization and neural substrates of human memory. , 1987, International journal of neurology.

[2]  Michael J. Frank,et al.  Transitivity, flexibility, conjunctive representations, and the hippocampus. II. A computational analysis , 2003, Hippocampus.

[3]  D E Over,et al.  Contingency, causation, and adaptive inference. , 2001, Psychological review.

[4]  A. U.S.,et al.  Predictability , Complexity , and Learning , 2002 .

[5]  H Eichenbaum,et al.  Memory for items and memory for relations in the procedural/declarative memory framework. , 1997, Memory.

[6]  Michael Van Elzakker,et al.  Transitivity, flexibility, conjunctive representations, and the hippocampus. I. An empirical analysis , 2003, Hippocampus.

[7]  R. Shepard,et al.  Toward a universal law of generalization for psychological science. , 1987, Science.

[8]  Timothy C. Rickard,et al.  Losing Their Configural Mind: Amnesic Patients Fail on Transverse Patterning , 1998, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[9]  L R Squire,et al.  Independence of recognition memory and priming effects: a neuropsychological analysis. , 1985, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[10]  Kathryn M. McMillan,et al.  N‐back working memory paradigm: A meta‐analysis of normative functional neuroimaging studies , 2005, Human brain mapping.

[11]  William B Levy,et al.  Relational learning with and without awareness: Transitive inference using nonverbal stimuli in humans , 2001, Memory & cognition.

[12]  Daniel L. Schacter,et al.  Memory and Awareness , 1998, Science.

[13]  Robert S. Astur,et al.  Configural learning in humans: The transverse patterning problem , 1998, Psychobiology.

[14]  C. Alberini,et al.  Memory , 2006, Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences CMLS.

[15]  William L. Gross,et al.  An fMRI Analysis of the Human Hippocampus: Inference, Context, and Task Awareness , 2006, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[16]  Zoltán Dienes,et al.  Transfer of implicit knowledge across domains? How implicit and how abstract? , 1997 .

[17]  L. Reder,et al.  The effect of midazolam on visual search: Implications for understanding amnesia. , 2004, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[18]  N. Cohen,et al.  Amnesia is a Deficit in Relational Memory , 2000, Psychological science.

[19]  D. Altman,et al.  Statistics notes: Cronbach's alpha , 1997 .

[20]  Joseph R. Manns,et al.  Trace and Delay Eyeblink Conditioning: Contrasting Phenomena of Declarative and Nondeclarative Memory , 2001, Psychological science.

[21]  Paul E. Gold,et al.  Coordination of multiple memory systems , 2004, Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.

[22]  R. Poldrack,et al.  Competition among multiple memory systems: converging evidence from animal and human brain studies , 2003, Neuropsychologia.

[23]  A. J. Greene,et al.  Human hippocampal‐dependent tasks: Is awareness necessary or sufficient? , 2007, Hippocampus.

[24]  J W Rudy,et al.  Rats with damage to the hippocampal-formation are impaired on the transverse-patterning problem but not on elemental discriminations. , 1995, Behavioral neuroscience.

[25]  R. Sutherland,et al.  Configural association theory and the hippocampal formation: An appraisal and reconfiguration , 1995, Hippocampus.

[26]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  Encoding uncertainty in the hippocampus , 2006, Neural Networks.

[27]  Jessica D. Payne,et al.  Human relational memory requires time and sleep , 2007, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[28]  Michael J. Frank,et al.  When Memory Fails, Intuition Reigns , 2006, Psychological science.

[29]  H Eichenbaum,et al.  The hippocampus and transverse patterning guided by olfactory cues. , 1998, Behavioral neuroscience.

[30]  R. Sutherland,et al.  The hippocampal formation is necessary for rats to learn and remember configural discriminations , 1989, Behavioural Brain Research.

[31]  D. Willingham,et al.  What differentiates declarative and procedural memories: reply to Cohen, Poldrack, and Eichenbaum (1997) , 1998, Memory.

[32]  S. Tonegawa,et al.  CA1-specific N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor knockout mice are deficient in solving a nonspatial transverse patterning task , 2001, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[33]  Joseph R. Manns,et al.  Recognition Memory and the Human Hippocampus , 2003, Neuron.

[34]  L R Squire,et al.  Dissociable properties of memory systems: differences in the flexibility of declarative and nondeclarative knowledge. , 1996, Behavioral neuroscience.

[35]  Larry R Squire,et al.  Declarative Memory, Awareness, and Transitive Inference , 2005, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[36]  William B. Levy,et al.  When logic fails: Implicit transitive inference in humans , 2005, Memory & cognition.

[37]  M. Chun,et al.  Memory deficits for implicit contextual information in amnesic subjects with hippocampal damage , 1999, Nature Neuroscience.

[38]  L R Squire,et al.  Impaired transverse patterning in human amnesia is a special case of impaired memory for two-choice discrimination tasks. , 1999, Behavioral neuroscience.