Beyond dissociation logic: Evidence for controlled and automatic influences in artificial grammar learning

Evidence for unconscious learning has typically been based on dissociations between direct and indirect tests of learning. Because of some inherent pr oblems with dissociation logic, we applied the logic of opposition to 2 art ificial grammar learning experiments. In Experiment 1, participants were ex posed to 2 different sets of letter strings, generated from 2 different gra mmars, and later rated test strings for grammaticality with either in-conce rt (rate grammatical strings consistent with either structure) or oppositio n (rate grammatical only strings from 1 of the structures) instructions. Ma nipulating response deadline affected controlled, but not automatic influen ces. In Experiment 2, after similar training, a source-monitoring test was administered from which the in-concert and opposition conditions were deriv ed. The test indicated that varying the retention interval affected control led, but not automatic, influences. The results are discussed in terms of a wareness, knowledge representation, and metacognitive processing.