Rules vs. Statistics in Implicit Learning of Biconditional Grammars

Abstract A significant part of everyday learning occurs incidentally — a process typically described as implicit learning. A central issue in this domain and others, such as language acquisition, is the extent to which performance depends on the acquisition and deployment of abstract rules. Shanks and colleagues [22], [11] have suggested (1) that discrimination between grammatical and ungrammatical instances of a biconditional grammar requires the acquisition and use of abstract rules, and (2) that training conditions — in particular whether instructions orient participants to identify the relevant rules or not — strongly influence the extent to which such rules will be learned. In this paper, we show (1) that a Simple Recurrent Network can in fact, under some conditions, learn a biconditional grammar, (2) that training conditions indeed influence learning in simple auto-associators networks and (3) that such networks can likewise learn about biconditional grammars, albeit to a lesser extent than human participants. These findings suggest that mastering biconditional grammars does not require the acquisition of abstract rules to the extent implied by Shanks and colleagues, and that performance on such material may in fact be based, at least in part, on simple associative learning mechanisms.
Keywords No keywords specified (fix it)
Categories No categories specified (fix it)
Options
 Save to my reading list
Follow the author(s)
My bibliography
Export citation
Find it on Scholar
Edit this record
Mark as duplicate
Revision history Request removal from index
 
Download options
PhilPapers Archive


Upload a copy of this paper     Check publisher's policy on self-archival     Papers currently archived: 5,709
External links
  •   Try with proxy.
  • Through your library Only published papers are available at libraries

    Similar books and articles
    Axel Cleeremans & L. JimC)nez (1998). Implicit Sequence Learning: The Truth is in the Details. In Michael A. Stadler & Peter A. Frensch (eds.), Handbook of Implicit Learning. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

    Analytics

    Monthly downloads

    Added to index

    2010-12-22

    Total downloads

    2 ( #232,684 of 549,700 )

    Recent downloads (6 months)

    1 ( #63,425 of 549,700 )

    How can I increase my downloads?


    My notes
    Sign in to use this feature


    Discussion
    Start a new thread
    Order:
    There  are no threads in this forum
    Nothing in this forum yet.

    Other forums