Learning the Structure of Event Sequences Axel Cleeremans and James L
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Journal of Experimental Psychology: General Copyright 1991 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 1991, Vol. 120, No. 3, 235-253 0096-3445/91/$3.00 Learning the Structure of Event Sequences Axel Cleeremans and James L. McClelland Carnegie Mellon University How is complex sequential material acquired, processed, and represented when there is no intention to learn? Two experiments exploring a choice reaction time task are reported. Unknown to Ss, successive stimuli followed a sequence derived from a "noisy" finite-state grammar. After considerable practice (60,000 exposures) with Experiment 1, Ss acquired a complex body of procedural knowledge about the sequential structure of the material. Experiment 2 was an attempt to identify limits on Ss ability to encode the temporal context by using more distant contingencies that spanned irrelevant material. Taken together, the results indicate that Ss become increasingly sensitive to the temporal context set by previous elements of the sequence, up to 3 elements. Responses are also affected by priming effects from recent trials. A connectionist model that incorporates sensitivity to the sequential structure and to priming effects is shown to capture key aspects of both acquisition and processing and to account for the interaction between attention and sequence structure reported by Cohen, Ivry, and Keele (1990). In many situations, learning does not proceed in the explicit explicit memory (conscious recollection)and implicit memory and goal-directed way characteristic of traditional models of (a facilitation of performance without conscious recollection). cognition (Newell & Simon, 1972). Rather, it appears that a Despite this wealth of evidence documenting implicit learn- good deal of our knowledge and skills are acquired in an ing, few models of the mechanisms involved have been pro- incidental and unintentional manner. The evidence support- posed. Reber's (1989) analysis of the field, for instance, leaves ing this claim is overwhelming: In his recent review article, one with the impression that little has been done beyond Reber (1989) analyzes about 40 empirical studies that docu- mere demonstrations of existence. This lack of formalization ment the existence of learning processes that do not necessar- can doubtless be attributed to the difficulty of assessing sub- ily entail awareness of the resulting knowledge or of the jects' knowledge when it does not lend itself easily to verbali- learning experience itself. At least three different "implicit zation. Indeed, although concept formation or traditional learning" paradigms have yielded robust and consistent re- induction studies can benefit from experimental procedures sults: artificial grammar learning (Dulany, Carlson, & Dewey, that reveal the organization of subjects' knowledge and the 1984; Mathews et al., 1989; Reber, 1967, 1989; Servan- strategies they use, such procedures often appear to disrupt or Schreiber & Anderson, 1990), system control (Berry & alter the very processes they are supposed to investigate in Broadbent, 1984; Hayes & Broadbent, 1988), and sequential implicit learning situations (see Dulany et al., 1984; Dulany, pattern acquisition (Cohen, Ivry, & Keele, 1990; Lewicki, Carlson, and Dewey, 1985; Reber, Allen, & Regan, 1985, for Czyzewska, & Hoffman, 1987; Lewicki, Hill, & Bizot, 1988; a discussion of this point). Thus, research on implicit learning Nissen & Bullemer, 1987; Willingham, Nissen, & Bullemer, has typically focused more on documenting the conditions 1989). The classic result in these experimental situations is under which one might expect the phenomenon to manifest that "subjects are able to acquire specific procedural knowl- itself than on obtaining the fine-grained data needed to elab- edge (i.e., processing rules) not only without being able to orate information-processing models. articulate what they have learned, but even without being Nevertheless, a detailed understanding of such learning aware that they had learned anything" (Lewicki et al., 1987, processes seems to be an essential preliminary step toward p. 523). Related research with neurologically impaired developing insights into the central questions raised by recent patients (see Schacter, 1987, for a review) also provides strong research, such as the relationship between task performance evidence for the existence of a functional dissociation between and "verbalizable" knowledge, the role that attention plays in unintentional learning, or the complex interactions between conscious thought and the many other functions of the cog- This research was supported by a grant from the National Fund nitive system. Such efforts at building simulation models of for Scientific Research (Belgium) to Axel Cleeremans and by a implicit learning mechanisms in specific experimental situa- National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Development tions are already underway. For instance, Servan-Schreiber Award to James L. McClelland. and Anderson (1990) and Matbews et al. (1989) have both We thank Steven Keele for providing us with details about the developed models of the Reber task that successfully account experimental data reported in Cohen, Ivry, and Keele (1990) and for key aspects of learning and classification performance. Emile and David Servan-Schreiber for several insightful discussions. In this article, we explore performance in a different exper- Arthur Reber and an anonymous reviewer contributed many helpful imental situation, which has recently attracted increased at- comments. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to tention as a paradigm for studying unintentional learning: Axel Cleeremans, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon Uni- sequential pattern acquisition. We report on two experiments, versity, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213. Electronic mail may be sent which investigate sequence learning in a novel way that allows to [email protected]. detailed data on subjects' sequential expectations to be ob- 235 236 AXEL CLEEREMANS AND JAMES L. McCLELLAND tained, and explore an information-processing model of the attentional capacity. Nissen and Bullemer (1987) demon- task. strated that a task similar to that used by Lewicki et al. (1988) failed to elicit performance improvements with practice when Sequence Learning a memory-intensive secondary task was performed concur- rently. More recently, A. Cohen et al. (1990) refined this result An increasingly large number of empirical studies have by showing that the ability to learn sequential material under begun to explore the conditions under which one might expect attentional distraction interacts with sequence complexity. subjects to display sensitivity to sequential structure despite Only sequences composed entirely of ambiguous elements limited ability to verbalize their knowledge. Most of these (i.e., elements that cannot be predicted solely on the basis of studies have used a choice reaction time paradigm. Thus, their immediate predecessor) are difficult to learn when a Lewicki et al. (1988) used a four-choice reaction time (RT) secondary task is present. task during which the stimulus could appear in one of four To sum up, there is clear evidence that subjects acquire quadrants of a computer screen on any trial. Unknown to specific procedural knowledge when exposed to structured subjects, the sequential structure of the material was manip- material. When the material is sequential, this knowledge is ulated by generating sequences of 5 elements according to a about the temporal contingencies between sequence elements. set of simple rules. Each rule defined where the next stimulus Furthermore, it appears that the learning processes underlying could appear as a function of the locations at which the two performance in sequential choice reaction experiments do not previous stimuli had appeared. As the set of sequences was entail or require awareness of the relevant contingencies, randomized, the first 2 elements of each sequence were un- although attention is needed to learn even moderately com- predictable. By contrast, the last 3 elements of each sequence plex material. Several important questions, however, remain were determined by their predecessors. Lewicki et al. (1988) unanswered. hypothesized that this difference would be reflected in re- First, it is not clear how sensitivity to the temporal context sponse latencies to the extent that subjects are using the develops over time. How do responses to specific sequence sequential structure to respond to successive stimuli. The elements vary with practice? Does sensitivity to more or less results confirmed the hypothesis: A progressively widening distant contingencies develop in parallel, or in stages, with difference between the number of fast and accurate responses the shortest contingencies being encoded earlier than the elicited by predictable and unpredictable trials emerged with longer ones? Is there an upper limit to the amount of sequen- practice. Furthermore, subjects were exposed to a different tial information that can be encoded, even after considerable set of sequences in a later part of the experiment. These practice? sequences were constructed using the same transition rules, Second, most recent research on sequence processing has but applied in a different order. Any knowledge about the used very simple material (but see Lewicki et al., 1987), sequential structure of the material acquired in the first part sometimes even accompanied by explicit cues to sequence of the