Implicit detection of event interdependencies.
Item
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Title
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Implicit detection of event interdependencies.
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Identifier
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AAI9224829
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identifier
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9224829
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Creator
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Kushner, Harry Michael.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Arthur S. Reber
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Date
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1992
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Experimental
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Abstract
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This dissertation presents three experiments which explore the ability of human subjects to extract covariation information from rule-governed visual displays. The procedure used in all of the experiments involves a prediction task in which subjects "guess" (with feedback) the location of a target event following a sequence of 5 or 9 similar events. In all cases, the location of the target event can be predicted with perfect accuracy according to a deterministic rule based on the relationship of 2 of the events in the immediately preceding sequence. Results from the experiments support the following broad conclusions: first, subjects can learn rules of this kind as measured by their steadily improving accuracy; second, their learning is largely implicit, that is, unaccompanied by conscious, explicit knowledge of the rules which govern the correct responses; third, they can transfer this learning to a new rule structure when the feedback is systematically shifted; and fourth, instructions which inform some subjects about the existence of a rule result in larger between-subject variation in performance relative to those not so informed. Implications of this work for implicit learning theory, and for cognitive psychology in general, are discussed.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
