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PubMed2006

Statistical learning within and between modalities: pitting abstract against stimulus-specific representations.

When learners encode sequential patterns and generalize their knowledge to novel instances, are they relying on abstract or stimulus-specific representations? Research on artificial grammar learning (AGL) has shown transfer of learning from one stimulus set to another, and such findings have encouraged the view that statistical learning is mediated by abstract representations that are independent of the sense modality or perceptual features of the stimuli. Using a novel modification of the standard AGL paradigm, we obtained data to the contrary. These experiments pitted abstract processing against stimulus-specific learning. The findings show that statistical learning results in knowledge that is stimulus-specific rather than abstract. They show furthermore that learning can proceed in parallel for multiple input streams along separate perceptual dimensions or sense modalities. We conclude that learning sequential structure and generalizing to novel stimuli inherently involve learning mechanisms that are closely tied to the perceptual characteristics of the input.

Association Learning↗
PubMed1989

Repeated acquisition of behavioral chains: response sequences or conditional discriminations?

The purpose of this study was to determine whether pigeons learn a sequence of positional responses or a series of conditional discriminations under a repeated-acquisition-of-behavioral-chains procedure. Three pigeons were trained under a repeated-acquisition procedure in which three different key colors served as stimuli correlated with the three steps in a chain. The order of presentation of the three stimuli was altered during the latter part of each test session after acquisition had occurred. If the pigeons had acquired a response sequence, the pattern of responding should remain the same as in the initial portion of the test session. However, if the pigeons had acquired a conditional discrimination, the response pattern should change in accordance with the changed order of the key colors. Although the results of this study do not rule out the possibility that the subjects acquired, to some degree, a response sequence, the results suggest that the behavior of pigeons under a repeated-acquisition-of-behavioral-chains procedure is controlled primarily by conditional discriminative stimuli.

Animals↗
PubMed1990

Equivalence classes generated by sequence training.

In Experiment 1, 3, adult females were taught with verbal instructions and contingencies to select, in sequence, three arbitrary visual stimuli from an array of five stimuli. After four different sequences were taught, match-to-sample tests assessed emergent conditional relations among all stimuli that had been selected in the same order in the sequences. Subjects' performances indicated development of four stimulus classes, three based on ordinal position and one based on nonselection. Next, match-to-sample training established conditional relations between each of four novel figures and one member of each of the ordinal stimulus classes. Tests confirmed that the classes were equivalence classes, each expanded by one new member. In subsequent sequence tests, the new stimuli were selected in a sequence that was consistent with ordinal class membership. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 with 2 different adult females, but the verbal instructions were omitted. Results were similar to Experiment 1, except that extensive review and retesting were required before expansion of the ordinal classes with the novel figures was observed.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Pallidotomy and incidental sequence learning in Parkinson's disease.

Converging evidence from animal research and human brain imaging studies, points to an important role of cortical-striatal motor circuitry in the incidental learning of serial order information. To date, attempts to address this role through the study of patients with striatal disorder have proved inconclusive. The present study examined the impact of a therapeutic lesion of the globus pallidus in patients with Parkinson's disease. The lesion, which blocks a primary output of the putamen to the motor cortices, eliminated incidental learning relative both to controls and unoperated patients. The finding offers support for models proposing that context detection within the striatum is a central process in serial order learning. An unexpected effect of the lesion was to significantly reduce the response time to random stimuli relative to an ordered series, the opposite of the normal pattern. It is speculated that this may reflect an unconscious alerting response to novelty, a process suggested to involve the ventral striatum and its cortical targets. Research on Parkinson's disease patients undergoing functional basal ganglia surgery may shed further light on the mechanisms and neuronal substrate of serial order learning in humans.

Aged↗
PubMed2004

Impaired higher order implicit sequence learning on the verbal version of the serial reaction time task in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Although neuroimaging studies have strongly implicated basal ganglia involvement in implicit sequence learning, serial reaction time (SRT) studies with Parkinson's disease (PD) patients have yielded mixed results. The present research sought to examine the ability of people with PD to implicitly learn sequences with different sequential structures and to objectively assess explicit knowledge. A version of the SRT task that reduces motor demands was used to compare 19 patients with PD but not dementia and 37 matched controls. PD patients showed less implicit sequence-specific learning for both sequences and reduced response time improvement over sequential trials for the more complex sequence. A closer examination revealed that the deficit involved higher order sequential associations as well as the learning of pairwise information.

Aged↗
PubMed2005

Individual differences in working memory capacity and learning: evidence from the serial reaction time task.

High and low working memory (WM) capacity individuals performed the serial reaction time task under both incidental and intentional learning conditions to determine the role of WM capacity in the learning of sequential information. WM capacity differences emerged in conditions of intentional but not incidental learning, indicating that individual differences in WM capacity occur in tasks requiring some form of control, with little difference appearing on tasks that required relatively automatic processing. Furthermore, an index of learning was significantly related to a measure of general fluid intelligence under intentional conditions only. Thus, the degree of learning was significantly related to higher order cognition, but only when intentional processing was emphasized.

Awareness↗
PubMed2001

Preserved implicit learning on both the serial reaction time task and artificial grammar in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Thirteen nondemented patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) were compared with age-matched controls on two standard tests of implicit learning. A verbal version of the Serial Reaction Time (SRT) task was used to assess sequence learning and an artificial grammar (AG) task assessed perceptual learning. It was predicted that PD patients would show implicit learning on the AG task but not the SRT task, as motor sequence learning is thought to be reliant on the basal ganglia, which is damaged in PD. Patients with PD demonstrated implicit learning on both tasks. In light of these unexpected results the research on SRT learning in PD is reconsidered, and some possible explanations for the sometimes conflicting results of PD patient samples on the SRT task are considered. Four factors which merit further study in this regard are the degree to which the SRT task relies on overt motor responses, the effects of frontal lobe dysfunction upon implicit sequence learning, the effects of cerebellar degeneration, and the degree to which the illness itself has advanced.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Serial processing and the "phonetic route:" lessons learned in the functional reorganization of deep dyslexia.

A patient with chronic agrammatic Broca's aphasia presented with symptoms of deep dyslexia, in which it is presumed that phonologic processing of the written message is disrupted. Functional reorganization of the "nonlexical" or phonetic route of reading was undertaken according to principles of A. R. Luria, whereby the patient must learn consciously to control behaviors that had formerly been unconscious and automatic. This patient's responses in treatment made it clear that the phonetic route encompasses at least two dissociable functions, grapheme-phoneme conversion and sequential analysis. This is discussed in light of Luria's ideas regarding the functions of the precentral and postcentral regions of sensori-motor cortex.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Effector-dependent and response location learning of probabilistic sequences in serial reaction time tasks.

We investigated the contributions of the sequences of effectors and response locations to probabilistic sequence learning in the serial reaction time task by means of bimanual transfer. Participants, trained with the dominant hand, were either required to maintain responding with the dominant hand after transfer or to switch to the nondominant hand. For both groups, half of the participants were transferred to the originally trained sequence, whereas the other half was transferred to a mirror-ordered sequence. This way, the sequence of effectors varied independently of the sequence of response locations. Sequence learning was assessed with probabilistic sequences, composed of either first-order or second-order probabilities. Transfer of sequence knowledge to the nondominant hand was equally good for the originally trained sequence as for the mirrored sequence. This suggests that probabilistic sequence learning can be based on either the sequence of effectors or response locations. However, when participants responded with the dominant hand to a mirrored sequence, transfer performance was disturbed. This indicates that changing both the sequences of effectors and response locations has a disruptive effect on the learning performance.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Neurobehavioral test performance in the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

The third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) contained three computerized neurobehavioral tests from the Neurobehavioral Evaluation System (NES): simple reaction time, symbol-digit substitution and serial digit learning. The neurobehavioral data that were collected came from a nationally representative sample of adults 20-59 years old. Performance on the tests was related to sex, age, education level, family income and race-ethnicity. Performance decreased as age increased, and increased as education level and family income increased. Differences in performance between sexes, levels of education and racial-ethnic groups tended to decrease as family income increased. The relationship between age and performance on the symbol-digit substitution test varied by education level and by racial-ethnic group. The relationship between age and performance on the serial digit learning test varied by racial-ethnic group. Questionnaire variables that were related to performance on one or more of the tests included the reported amount of last night's sleep, energy level, computer or video game familiarity, alcoholic beverages within the last 3 h and effort. Persons who took the tests in English or Spanish performed differently on the symbol-digit substitution and serial digit learning tests. Performance on all the tests decreased as test room temperature increased.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

[Interaction between visual and auditory memories in repetitive learning].

A serial recall experiment under same- and cross-modality conditions was carried out according to Hebb's (1961) paradigm. Subjects memorized strings of nine digits in 18 trials, which were divided into early trials and late ones. Under the same-modality condition the strings used in the 18 trials were presented through the same modality, i.e., visual or auditory, whereas under the cross-modality condition the strings used in the early and late trials were presented through two different modalities. A repeated string and unrepeated strings were presented 3 and 6 times respectively in both early and late trials. The results showed that (1) repetitive learning in the same-modality occurred for both visual and auditory; (2) there was a non-additivity of cross-modal repetitive learning from auditory to visual, whereas there was an additivity of cross-modal repetitive learning from visual to auditory. We inferred that the visual inputs received both visual coding and auditory coding through an audio-transformation so as to be separately memorized in visual and auditory memories, whereas the auditory inputs were memorized in the auditory memory through the auditory coding alone.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Benefits of Blocked Over Serial Feedback on Complex Motor Skill Learning.

The effects of blocked versus serial feedback (FB) on the learning of a complex motor skill-the production of slalom-type movements on a ski-simulator-were examined. FB was given about force onset, which is considered to be a measure of movement efficiency; relatively late force onsets characterize expert performance. One group of participants (blocked FB; n = 10) received FB about 1 foot per day; for example, for the right foot on Days 1 and 3 and for the left foot on Days 2 and 4. For another group (serial FB; n = 10), the foot about which FB was received was switched on consecutive trials on each of 4 days of practice. Learning was assessed on no-FB trials at the beginning of Days 2, 3, and 4, and on Day 5. Even though there were no differences between groups in force onset, the blocked FB group produced significantly larger movement amplitudes and higher movement frequencies than the serial FB group on the retention test on Day 5. Thus, contrary to the learning of more simple skills (e.g., T. D. Lee & H. Carnahan, 1990), constantly changing the movement component that FB is provided about did not seem to be beneficial for the learning of more complex skills. The findings add to the increasing evidence showing that practice variables that have been shown to enhance the learning of simple skills can actually be detrimental to the learning of complex skills.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Examining the relationship between word learning, nonword repetition, and immediate serial recall in adults.

Two experiments examined whether the association between word-learning, nonword repetition, and immediate serial recall observed in children also exists in normal adults. The experiments also introduce a novel paradigm for studying word-learning. Experiment 1 studied the performance of 52 adults in nonword repetition, immediate serial recall, and word-learning tasks, examining the correlation between these measures. The results indicate that the developmental relationships between all three abilities also exist in adults. Experiment 2 investigated the robustness of these results using different stimuli and a variant of the word-learning task, and it also examined performance in a visuospatial span task, to test an alternative account of the results of Experiment 1; the results from 58 adults provide further evidence that the developmental association between word-learning, nonword repetition, and immediate serial recall extends into adulthood. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed in terms of alternative models of the relationship between these abilities.

Adolescent↗