Attentional requirements of learning: Evidence from performance measures

doi:10.1016/0010-0285(87)90002-8

Cognitive Psychology

Volume 19, Issue 1, January 1987, Pages 1-32

https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(87)90002-8 Get rights and content

Abstract

Important differences have emerged between introspective measures of learning, such as recall and recognition, and performance measures, in which the performance of a task is facilitated by prior experience. Introspective remembering of unattended stimuli is poor. We investigated whether performance measures would also show a strong dependence on attention. Subjects performed a serial reaction time task comprised of a repeating 10-trial stimulus sequence. When this task was given under dual-task conditions, acquisition of the sequence as assessed by verbal reports and performance measures was minimal. Patients with Korsakoff's syndrome learned the sequence despite their lack of awareness of the repeating pattern. Results are discussed in terms of the attentional requirements of learning, the relation between learning and awareness, preserved learning in amnesia, and the separation of memory systems.

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^☆: This project was supported in part by the Center for Research in Human Learning of the University of Minnesota and by a Faculty Research Grant from the University of Minnesota. Portions of this research were presented to the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, San Antonio, November 8–10, 1984.

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Attentional requirements of learning: Evidence from performance measures☆

Abstract

Neuropsychologia

Cognitive Psychology

Brain Research

Cognition

Neuropsychologia

Neuropsychologia

On the division of attention: A disproof of the single channel hypothesis

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

There is no convincing evidence for operant and classical conditioning in humans

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Science

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Psychological Review

Direct and associative priming in anagram solving

Journal of Experimental Psychology

Memory for unattended events: Remembering with and without awareness

Memory & Cognition

The effects of distraction on pursuit rotor learning, performance and reminiscence

British Journal of Psychology

Memory as a function of attention, level of processing, and automatization

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

Implicit and explicit memory for new associations in normal and amnesic subjects

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

The information that amnesic patients do not forget

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

Distinctive features of learning in the higher animal

On the relationship between autobiographical memory and perceptual learning

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Remembering without awareness

Canadian Journal of Psychology

Is conscious attention necessary for long term storage?

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory

Implicit learning in patients with probable Alzheimer's disease