Implicit Learning and SRTs

• Implicit Learning (Saevland and Norman)


  Occurs without full conscious awareness of patterns in learning matter or that learning has occurred
• Examples of implicit learning

  Riding a bike, learning languages during infancy
• What is SRT?

  Methodology used to investigate implicit learning where PP presses a key in response to stimuli shown repetitively until a novel sequence is shown
• What are typical SRT results?

  PP speed up in selecting options, and RT decreases initially, but after a novel sequence, RT becomes longer and slower.
• Process-dissociation

  SRT process where PP is manipulated using inclusion and exclusion
• Inclusion manipulation


  PP guesses next stimulus location
• Exclusion manipulation


  PP avoids guessing the correct next stimulus location
• What does it mean if inclusion scores are higher than exclusion scores?


  Learning is wholly or partially explicit
• What does it mean if there is no difference between inclusion and exclusion scores?

  Implicit learning
• Haider et al (2011) Task?


  Used SRT task where PP picked the colour matching colour of the word to differentiate between explicit and implicit learning.
• What did an RT drop in Haider et al. 2011 suggest?


  PP having sudden conscious explicit realisation of SRT sequence
• Haider et al. 2011 Findings


  RT drop got higher percentage correct scores on inclusion trials than on exclusion trials and could explain the training sequence, but non-RT drop got low scores on both trials, showing a lack of explicit learning and could not explain the training sequence.
• Jimenez and Vasquez 2011 addition to implict vs explict debate

  SE: during dual-task (SRT+2nd implicit task) implicit learning does not require higher cognitive functions
• Wessel (2012) and Lawson (2017)


  PFC activated during explicit learning
• 4 reasons why implicit learning findings are inconsistent (Beukema and Verstynen)

  1. IL not localised
  2. Brain systems overlap for the activity of IL + EL
  3. ID - Different learning strategies
  4. B+V found EL uses medial temporal lobe for early stages of learning but, IL uses basal ganglia for early stages of learning.
• Amnesia patients for SRT (Oudman - 2015)


  The expectation is that they have intact IL but impaired EL but actually, their IL is impaired as they behave slower than CG.
• Parkinson's PP for implicit learning


  They have damage to the striatum, so it is expected they have impaired EL but intact IL. But they are impaired in both.