Research On Graded Consciousness In Undergraduates’ Learning Of Artificial Grammar

Consciousness has always been much concerned in cognition science and, with thediscovery of implicit learning in artificial grammar researches, influences of unconsciousprocesses on human cognition have been unprecedentedly highlighted. Dozens ofempirical investigations have distinguished two different types of learning, i.e. explicitlearning and implicit learning which involve conscious and unconscious processingrespectively. Hence their critical features and interactive patterns undergo tentativeexplorations and several theoretical frameworks have been proposed to demonstrate theunderlying mental mechanisms, most of which take the side of dualistic logic. However,with the improvement of empirical techniques and measures, more and more doubt hasbeen shed upon the purity of conscious and unconscious process in learning. Empiricaldata tend to indicate that, rather than stand in dichotomy, so often they co-exist only with aquantitative difference. The academic dilemma is now been broken through by the gradedconsciousness hypothesis, as result of which new perspective arises from theconscious-process dimension to deeply investigate implicit learning.In the present research the dynamic mental evolution pattern has been explored,regarding both consciousness and knowledge representation, of undergraduates in artificialgrammar learning. First, a theoretical framework of distributive representation rehearsalwas proposed based on hypothesis of distributive representation and representationrehearsal. The framework indicates that the ever-optimizing distributive representationdominates the learning process, driven by intrinsic and conceptual representation rehearsal.Thus graded consciousness comes into form due to the increasing contribution ofconscious process and, together with the hierarchical structure of knowledge representations, it connects implicit learning with explicit learning rather than separatesthem in a more constructive way.A dual-task design was introduced in current study with reference to the PDPparadigm formerly adopted in implicit memory researches, as a result of which thecontributions of conscious and unconscious processes could be extracted dynamicallyalong the learning course. This innovative paradigm also makes possible a directinvestigation of graded consciousness during the learning phase. Moreover, such empiricalvariables as learning materials and secondary tasks have been applied in the study tofurther explore the mental mechanisms underlying implicit learning. Otherwise explicitlearning of artificial grammar was initiated with easier or rule-targeted learning tasks,aiming at obtaining the interactive relationship of implicit and explicit learning, so as todemonstrate the distributive representation rehearsal hypothesis and provide substantialenlightenment for the creative learning of undergraduates.The results of current study shows that, in the implicit phase of artificial grammarlearning, the contribution of conscious process exhibited a slow-first-and-fast-then growingpattern while a slow-first-and-stable-then pattern was found with unconscious process. Inthe beginning unconscious contribution prevailed but was eventually exceeded byconscious process in the subsequent blocks. When extended to explicit phase, learningseemed to be dominated by conscious contribution with a larger gap over unconsciouscontribution. However, in the final blocks of explicit learning phase conscious processsuffered a stagnation while a second growing emerged for unconscious process, whichqualifies the learning as automation. These findings, being compatible with those empiricalresearches following dichotomy logic, not only define distinguishable features for implicitlearning and explicit learning, but also demonstrate the graded consciousness in artificialgrammar learning and make possible a learning continuum progressing from implicit toexplicit learning. The current study also investigated the influence made by changing thesurface properties of learning stimulus, introducing secondary tasks and adoptingperception-subjected materials. Those manipulations have brought about different changing patterns for conscious and unconscious processes, prompting thatunconsciousness is mainly data-driven and adheres to surface properties of stimulus whileconsciousness is concept-driven and concerns abstract rules of learning contexts. In thosestudies which assumed graded consciousness perspective the structures of knowledgerepresentations were also discussed via intrinsic representation rehearsal. In the followingresearch the performances of multiple learning combinations was studied to find thatoptimal learning performance occurred when implicit learning was first initiated and thenfollowed by explicit learning. Neither implicit nor explicit learning took any advantage byitself solely unless they were integrated in a successive manner. These results indicate thatimplicit learning and explicit learning generate a synergistic effect in serial timingsequence, thereby inform higher educators that passive adaption and active explorationshould be effectively combined to create a more open and facilitative learning environmentfor college students.