Conscious versus unconscious learning of structure

The ways we come to learn about the structure of complex environments is intimately linked to the conscious-unconscious distinction. Indeed, Reber (1967, 1989) argued that we could acquire unconscious knowledge of some structures we could not readily consciously learn about because of their complexity. Some authors agree there are two modes of learning distinguished by their conscious versus unconscious phenomenology (e.g. Scott & Dienes, 2010a). Others at least agree there are striking di¤erences in phenomenology in di¤erent learning situations. For example, Shanks (2005), who does not accept there is such thing as unconscious knowledge, nonetheless notes that when he himself performed a standard implicit learning task that he found that ‘‘trying to articulate my knowledge, even only moments after performing the task, seem[ed] to require a Herculean e¤ort of mental will that yield[ed] only the sketchiest useful information. (p. 211)’’ By contrast, in yet other learning situations, knowledge can be readily described as it is being applied. The everyday example of natural language makes the contrast between these phenomenologies stark. We all learnt the main grammatical constructions of our native language by about age five without even consciously knowing there was a grammar to be learnt. And as adults we still cannot describe all the rules we spontaneously use. Yet when we learn a second language as an adult we may spend considerable time memorising rules of grammar. The two methods of learning feel very di¤erent and produce di¤erent results. By suitably defining conscious versus unconscious we can describe the di¤erence in phenomenologies. And that di¤erence may well be a marker of di¤erent mechanisms of learning. Indeed, the di¤erence in phenomenology is so striking that the distinction was constantly reinvented before it became part of an established literature, despite behaviouristic tendencies in psychologists to avoid the conscious versus unconscious terms (e.g. Broadbent, 1977; Hull, 1920; Lewicki, 1986; Phelan, 1965; Reber, 1967; Rommetveit, 1960; Smoke, 1932). Thus, the starting point for a definition of conscious versus unconscious should be one that picks out the real life examples that motivate the distinction, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40