UNCONSCIOUS KNOWLEDGE OF ARTIFICIAL GRAMMARS IS APPLIED STRATEGICALLY

The criteria by which incidentally acquired knowledge of an artificial grammar (A. S. Reber, 1967) could be unconscious was explored in 5 ex periments. Participants trained on an artificial grammar lacked metakn owledge of their knowledge: Participants classified substantially abov e chance even when they believed that they were literally guessing, an d, under some conditions, participants' confidence in incorrect decisi ons was just as great as their confidence in correct decisions. Howeve r, participants had a large degree of strategic control over their kno wledge: Participants trained on 2 grammars could decide which grammar to apply in a test phase, and there was no detectable tendency for par ticipants to apply the other grammar.