Sequence learning: Phenomena and models

✍ Scribed by A. Buchner; P. A. Frensch

• Book ID: 104768154
• Publisher: Guilford Publishing Inc
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 299 KB
• Volume: 60
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0340-0727
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00419675

✦ Synopsis

In their influential review and critique of experimental paradigms that have been used to dissociate implicit and explicit learning, Shanks and St. John (1994) classified the sequence-learning paradigm as "a very promising field of research" (p. 389). Promising or not, the area has flourished in the past ten years, tipped off by the "classic" sequential reaction time experiments of Nissen and Bullemer (1987). This Special Issue was stimulated by the abundance of activity in the field. We want to thank the researchers, all of which are among the most visible and influential in the area of sequence learning, first and foremost, for contributing their time and energy to this project. Due to their participation, the contents of this Issue may be seen as a reflection of the true diversity of the phenomena explored and the models proposed in current sequence-learning research.

In the typical sequence-learning task, participants are asked to react, as fast as they can and with a discriminative response, to one of a small number of possible events. Unbeknownst to participants, the sequence of events follows a certain systematicity. Learning of the systematicity is assessed indirectly by contrasting response latencies to events in systematic sequences with response latencies to events in sequences that do not follow that systematicity. Sequence learning is said to have occurred if the response latencies are longer for event sequences that do not follow the original systematicity than for sequences that do.

Given the simplicity of this task, both the amount of current sequence-learning research and its diversity may seem surprising. We believe that there are at least three reasons why this task has been attractive to many researchers. First, researchers who view learning of event A. Buchner (E}~)