Statistical learning of two artificial languages presented successively: how conscious?
Ana Franco, Axel Cleeremans, Arnaud Destrebecqz
Frontiers in Psychology 2011 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00229 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Measures | Process-Dissociation Procedure |
| Keywords | Consciousness Implicit learning Process-dissociation procedure Statistical learning |
| Key findings | The authors report that participants learned two artificial languages that shared syllables but differed in transitional probabilities, and could parse and differentiate between them. Using an adaptation of the Process-Dissociation Procedure, they suggest the resulting statistical representations were available to conscious control. |
Abstract
Statistical learning is assumed to occur automatically and implicitly, but little is known about the extent to which the representations acquired over training are available to conscious awareness. In this study, we focus on whether the knowledge acquired in a statistical learning situation is available to conscious control. Participants were first exposed to an artificial language presented auditorily. Immediately thereafter, they were exposed to a second artificial language. Both languages were composed of the same corpus of syllables and differed only in the transitional probabilities. We first determined that both languages were equally learnable (Experiment 1) and that participants could learn the two languages and differentiate between them (Experiment 2). Then, in Experiment 3, we used an adaptation of the Process-Dissociation Procedure (Jacoby, 1991) to explore whether participants could consciously manipulate the acquired knowledge. Results suggest that statistical information can be used to parse and differentiate between two different artificial languages, and that the resulting representations are available to conscious control.