Visual statistical learning is not reliably modulated by selective attention to isolated events

Recent studies of visual statistical learning (VSL) have indicated that the visual system can automatically extract the temporal and spatial relationships between objects. We report several attempts to replicate and extend earlier work (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 134, 552–564, 2005) in which observers performed a cover task on one of two interleaved stimulus sets, resulting in the learning of temporal relationships that occurred in the attended stream, but not those present in the unattended stream. Across four experiments, we exposed observers to similar or identical familiarization protocols, directing attention to one of two interleaved stimulus sets; afterward, we assessed the VSL efficacy for both sets using either implicit response time measures or explicit familiarity judgments. In line with prior work, we observed learning for the attended stimulus set. However, unlike in previous reports, we also observed learning for the unattended stimulus set. When instructed to selectively attend to only one of the stimulus sets and ignore the other set, observers could extract temporal regularities for both sets. Our efforts to experimentally decrease this effect by changing the cover task (Exp. 1) or the complexity of the statistical regularities (Exp. 3) were unsuccessful. A fourth experiment using a different assessment of learning likewise failed to show an attentional effect. Simulations drawing random samples from our first three experiments (n = 64) confirmed that the distribution of attentional effects in our sample closely approximated the null. We offer several potential explanations for our failure to replicate earlier findings and discuss how our results suggest limiting conditions on the relevance of attention to VSL.

[1]  M. Behrmann,et al.  Role of attention and perceptual grouping in visual statistical learning. , 2004, Psychological science.

[2]  R. Aslin,et al.  Statistical learning of higher-order temporal structure from visual shape sequences. , 2002, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[3]  R. Aslin,et al.  Encoding multielement scenes: statistical learning of visual feature hierarchies. , 2005, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[4]  N. Mackintosh.  A Theory of Attention: Variations in the Associability of Stimuli with Reinforcement , 1975 .

[5]  J. Algina,et al.  Generalized eta and omega squared statistics: measures of effect size for some common research designs. , 2003, Psychological methods.

[6]  E. Viding,et al.  Load theory of selective attention and cognitive control. , 2004, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[7]  M. Posner,et al.  Selective attention and cognitive control , 1987, Trends in Neurosciences.

[8]  Kazuo Shigemasu,et al.  Role of selective attention in artificial grammar learning , 2008, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[9]  Lynn Hasher,et al.  Age differences in visual statistical learning. , 2012, Psychology and aging.

[10]  Aaron B. Hoffman,et al.  Eyetracking and selective attention in category learning , 2005, Cognitive Psychology.

[11]  A. Reber.  Implicit learning of artificial grammars , 1967 .

[12]  George Houghton,et al.  Connectionist models in cognitive psychology , 2004 .

[13]  Scott P. Johnson,et al.  Visual statistical learning in infancy: evidence for a domain general learning mechanism , 2002, Cognition.

[14]  G. Francis.  Publication bias and the failure of replication in experimental psychology , 2012, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[15]  B. Scholl,et al.  Multidimensional Visual Statistical Learning Visual Statistical Learning , 2005 .

[16]  Richard N Aslin,et al.  Statistical learning of new visual feature combinations by infants , 2002, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[17]  Scott P. Johnson,et al.  Visual statistical learning in the newborn infant , 2011, Cognition.

[18]  Tim Curran,et al.  Attentional and Nonattentional Forms of Sequence Learning , 1993 .

[19]  Luis Jiménez,et al.  Which Attention Is Needed for Implicit Sequence Learning , 1999 .

[20]  D. Medin,et al.  SUSTAIN: a network model of category learning. , 2004, Psychological review.

[21]  R N Aslin,et al.  Statistical Learning by 8-Month-Old Infants , 1996, Science.

[22]  Sarah C. Creel,et al.  Distant melodies: statistical learning of nonadjacent dependencies in tone sequences. , 2004, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[23]  E. Newport,et al.  PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Research Article INCIDENTAL LANGUAGE LEARNING: Ustening (and Learning) out of the Comer of Your Ear , 2022 .

[24]  Nicholas B. Turk-Browne,et al.  Visual statistical learning through intervening noise , 2010 .

[25]  Pieter R. Roelfsema,et al.  Attention-Gated Reinforcement Learning of Internal Representations for Classification , 2005, Neural Computation.

[26]  J. G. Snodgrass,et al.  A standardized set of 260 pictures: norms for name agreement, image agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity. , 1980, Journal of experimental psychology. Human learning and memory.

[27]  Bruce Bridgeman,et al.  Space-independent modality-driven attentional capture in auditory, tactile and visual systems , 2004, Experimental Brain Research.

[28]  Jonathan W. Peirce,et al.  PsychoPy—Psychophysics software in Python , 2007, Journal of Neuroscience Methods.

[29]  Geoffrey L. Cohen,et al.  Current Directions in Psychological Science , 2009 .

[30]  Morten H. Christiansen,et al.  Modality-constrained statistical learning of tactile, visual, and auditory sequences. , 2005, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[31]  M. Chun,et al.  Selective attention modulates implicit learning , 2001, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology.

[32]  John K. Kruschke,et al.  Learning Involves Attention , 2000 .

[33]  David S. Touretzky,et al.  Operant behavior suggests attentional gating of dopamine system inputs , 2001, Neurocomputing.

[34]  A. Gelman,et al.  The Difference Between “Significant” and “Not Significant” is not Itself Statistically Significant , 2006 .

[35]  N. Turk-Browne,et al.  Mutual Interference Between Statistical Summary Perception and Statistical Learning , 2011, Psychological science.

[36]  Psychology in general. , .

[37]  S. Kakade,et al.  Learning and selective attention , 2000, Nature Neuroscience.

[38]  Aaron R. Seitz,et al.  The effect of statistical learning on internal stimulus representations: Predictable items are enhanced even when not predicted , 2013, Cognition.

[39]  Richard I. Ivry,et al.  Attention and structure in sequence learning. , 1990 .

[40]  P. Perruchet,et al.  Implicit learning and statistical learning: one phenomenon, two approaches , 2006, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[41]  Marcia K. Johnson,et al.  Implicit Perceptual Anticipation Triggered by Statistical Learning , 2010, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[42]  B. Scholl,et al.  The Automaticity of Visual Statistical Learning Statistical Learning , 2005 .

[43]  A. Reber,et al.  The dual-task SRT procedure: Fine-tuning the timing , 2001, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[44]  S. Grossberg,et al.  Psychological Review , 2003 .

[45]  M. Chun,et al.  Contextual Cueing: Implicit Learning and Memory of Visual Context Guides Spatial Attention , 1998, Cognitive Psychology.

[46]  Richard N. Aslin,et al.  Changing Structures in Midstream: Learning Along the Statistical Garden Path , 2009, Cogn. Sci..

[47]  R. Aslin,et al.  PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Research Article UNSUPERVISED STATISTICAL LEARNING OF HIGHER-ORDER SPATIAL STRUCTURES FROM VISUAL SCENES , 2022 .

[48]  N. Lavie.  Attention, Distraction, and Cognitive Control Under Load , 2010 .

[49]  Sébastien Pacton,et al.  An attention-based associative account of adjacent and nonadjacent dependency learning. , 2008, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[50]  Elizabeth K. Johnson,et al.  Statistical learning of tone sequences by human infants and adults , 1999, Cognition.

[51]  Lauren V. Kustner,et al.  Shaping of Object Representations in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe Based on Temporal Regularities , 2012, Current Biology.

[52]  Scott Sinnett,et al.  Speech segmentation by statistical learning depends on attention , 2005, Cognition.

[53]  David R. Shanks,et al.  Attentional load and implicit sequence learning , 2005, Psychological research.

[54]  Morten H. Christiansen,et al.  Timing is everything: Changes in presentation rate have opposite effects on auditory and visual implicit statistical learning , 2011, Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[55]  Eliana Colunga,et al.  Knowledge as Process: Contextually Cued Attention and Early Word Learning , 2010, Cogn. Sci..

[56]  N. Turk-Browne,et al.  Attention Is Spontaneously Biased Toward Regularities , 2013, Psychological science.

[57]  J. Pearce,et al.  A model for Pavlovian learning: Variations in the effectiveness of conditioned but not of unconditioned stimuli. , 1980 .

[58]  W. T. Maddox,et al.  Multiple attention systems in perceptual categorization , 2002, Memory & cognition.

[59]  Morten H. Christiansen,et al.  PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Research Article Statistical Learning Within and Between Modalities Pitting Abstract Against Stimulus-Specific Representations , 2022 .