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Learning the experimenter's design: tacit sensitivity to the structure of memory lists

Learning the experimenter's design: tacit sensitivity to the structure of memory lists
Learning the experimenter's design: tacit sensitivity to the structure of memory lists
Two experiments are reported that draw an analogy between experiments on verbal memory and experiments on tacit learning. Rules that experimenters use to select words for memory experiments, such as frequency, length, and grammatical class, produce consistencies to which subjects can become sensitive. Replicating the key results from the tacit learning literature, subjects in our experiments discriminated new words consistent with the experimenters' selection rules from inconsistent words, even when they could not describe those rules. The results also reveal a close relation between the information underlying both recognition memory and classification judgements. In particular, a "mirror effect" (Glanzer & Bowles, 1976) is found with both tasks. Implications for research on memory and learning are discussed.
0272-4987
199-215
Higham, Philip A.
4093b28f-7d58-4d18-89d4-021792e418e7
Brooks, Lee R.
88a55d4f-f86f-4a31-a3f7-9542518d5945
Higham, Philip A.
4093b28f-7d58-4d18-89d4-021792e418e7
Brooks, Lee R.
88a55d4f-f86f-4a31-a3f7-9542518d5945

Higham, Philip A. and Brooks, Lee R. (1997) Learning the experimenter's design: tacit sensitivity to the structure of memory lists. Quarterly Journal Of Experimental Psychology Section A - Human Experimental Psychology, 50 (1), 199-215. (doi:10.1080/027249897392297).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Two experiments are reported that draw an analogy between experiments on verbal memory and experiments on tacit learning. Rules that experimenters use to select words for memory experiments, such as frequency, length, and grammatical class, produce consistencies to which subjects can become sensitive. Replicating the key results from the tacit learning literature, subjects in our experiments discriminated new words consistent with the experimenters' selection rules from inconsistent words, even when they could not describe those rules. The results also reveal a close relation between the information underlying both recognition memory and classification judgements. In particular, a "mirror effect" (Glanzer & Bowles, 1976) is found with both tasks. Implications for research on memory and learning are discussed.

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Published date: 1997

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 18317
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/18317
ISSN: 0272-4987
PURE UUID: 4c50d37d-3e54-44ca-8e8a-7421ec44c33b
ORCID for Philip A. Higham: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-6087-7224

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Date deposited: 13 Jan 2006
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 03:18

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Author: Lee R. Brooks

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