Unconscious Processes In Learning And Memory: An Integrated Approach

A large amount of researchers have been working in two areas connected to the unconscious processes in learning and memory, implicit learning and implicit memory, since the terms were invented by Reber(1967) and Graf & Schacter(1985). A confusing paradox is that, despite the similarity of their names, implicit learning and implicit memory seldom talk with each other. Many researchers believe implicit learning refers to a procedure in which some complex rules of a structured domain are grasped unconsciously, while implicit memory refers to an unconscious after-effect of previously perceived items on a succeeding task.However, the author insisted that an integrated approach should be applied to the studies on unconscious processes of learning and memory. This statement has found itself supported by the truths as followed: Firstly, learning and memory have just a vague distinction between their natures. Secondly, research works in implicit learning have already gone beyond Reber's Artificial Grammar Learning (AGL) paradigm, and transferred from a training-dissociation and unconscious rule-acquisition view, to a testing-dissociation and unconscious rule-expressing view, which is identical to the core idea of implicit memory. Thirdly, an evolutional perspective of unconsciousness predicted a tight connection among unconscious processes in learning and memory, since these processes are relatively general and unspecified. Last but not least, some studies have demonstrated many similarities between implicit memory and implicit learning, in perspective of their characteristics, their theoretical accounts, and neural network simulations. The author also argued that researches on unconscious processes in learning and memory should begin with investigations of response behaviors in testing phase, in which the biological adaptation indicates its meaning, and the whole string of acquisition, retrieval, and express of information reaches an end convenient for any direct study.In five experiments, the author showed how studies on unconscious processes in learning and memory followed an integrated approach could be carried out. Experiment 1 proved a testing-dissociation could be found in AGL, and yes-response of new grammatical strings would get higher while perceptual fluency increases. This output suggested that perceptual fluency might be underlying mechanism of implicit learning.In Experiment two, the author doubled times of the repeats of training strings, andfound the effect of perceptual fluency on new grammatical strings was induced, while yes-response of non-grammatical strings increased. This output suggested that perceptual fluency and exemplar-chunk recall were both the ways through which knowledge of AG could be expressed.Experiment three studied how perceptual fluency works like in affecting grammatical classification. It turned out that heuristic of perceptual fluency works only when there is no evidence could distribute the fluency to any source in circumstance. This conclusion is much similar to the theory describing the role of perceptual fluency in false memory. Thus, unconscious processes in learning and memory seemed again very likely to share the same basic mechanism concerned with perception process.Experiment four combined the interests of implicit learning and implicit memory in one single experiment. The author investigated how different combinations of trainings and tests will make AGL look different. It is found that whether or not unconscious processes would play an important role in AGL testing phase, is determined by the combination of the ways of information acquisition and expressing. Thus the experiment corrected the former idea of simple distinction between implicit and explicit learning, and proved the benefit of the integrated approach.Experiment five used a typical indirect test usually applied in implicit memory studies. Priming-effect in an identification task of Chinese characters was concerned with mechanism working on level of perception process, and a response strategy based on heuristic of p...