The results of four experiments provide evidence for controlled processing in the absence of awareness. Participants identified the colour of a neutral distracter word. Each of four words was presented in one of the four colours 75% of the time or 50% of the time . Colour identification was faster when the words appeared in the colour they were most often presented in relative to when they appeared in another colour, even for participants who were subjectively unaware of any contingencies (...) between the words and the colours. An analysis of sequence effects showed that participants who were unaware of the relation between distracter words and colours nonetheless controlled the impact of the word on performance depending on the nature of the previous trial. A block analysis of contingency-unaware participants revealed that contingencies were learned rapidly in the first block of trials. Experiment 3 showed that the contingency effect does not depend on the level of awareness, thus ruling out explicit strategy accounts. Finally, Experiment 4 showed that the contingency effect results from behavioural control and not from semantic association or stimulus familiarity. These results thus provide evidence for implicit control. (shrink)

In three experiments, each of a set colour-unrelated distracting words was presented most often in a particular target print colour . In Experiment 1, half of the participants were told the word-colour contingencies in advance and half were not . The instructed group showed a larger learning effect. This instruction effect was fully explained by increases in subjective awareness with instruction. In Experiment 2, contingency instructions were again given, but no contingencies were actually present. Although many participants claimed to be (...) aware of these contingencies, they did not produce an instructed contingency effect. In Experiment 3, half of the participants were given contingency instructions that did not correspond to the correct contingencies. Participants with these false instructions learned the actual contingencies worse than controls. Collectively, our results suggest that conscious contingency knowledge might play a moderating role in the strength of implicit learning. (shrink)

Recent studies show that when words are correlated with the colours they are printed in , colour identification is faster when the word is presented in its correlated colour than in an uncorrelated colour . The present series of experiments explored the possible mechanisms involved in this colour-word contingency learning effect. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the effect is already present after 18 learning trials. During subsequent unlearning, the effect extinguished equally rapidly. Two reanalyses of data from Schmidt, Crump, Cheesman, and (...) Besner ruled out an account of the effect in terms of stimulus repetitions. Experiment 2 demonstrated that participants who carry a memory load do not show a contingency effect, supporting the hypothesis that limited-capacity resources are required for learning. Experiment 3 demonstrated that memory resources are required for both storage and retrieval processes. (shrink)