IMPLICIT LEARNING OF COMPLEX STRUCTURES - ACTIVE ADAPTATION AND SELECTIVE PROCESSING IN ACQUISITION AND APPLICATION

Subjects exposed to members of a structured domain become sensitive to the general structure of that domain, even when they are unaware that the domain has such structure (e.g., Reber, 1993). Numerous investiga tors have attempted to characterize this learning as unselective in ac quisition and automatic in application. However, we contend that this characterization miscasts the fundamental nature of learning. In a ser ies of experiments, we demonstrate that what subjects learn implicitly about the structure of a domain critically depends on decisions they make about how to organize the structural components. Similarly the ap plication of knowledge gained implicitly is not stable, but may be sel ected or even created under the demands of the test task. We conclude that implicit learning, just like explicit learning, proceeds through active organization of the stimulus complex, rather than by passively absorbing any level of structure. We propose a synthesis, in which lea rning, with and without awareness, is understood through a common set of principles.