Conflicts between expected and actually performed behavior lead to verbal report of incidentally acquired sequential knowledge

Abstract

According to the Unexpected-Event Hypothesis (UEH) (Frensch, Haider, Rünger, Neugebauer, Voigt & Werg, 2002), conflicts between expected and actually performed behaviors trigger attribution processes and ultimately lead to the ability to verbally report an incidentally experienced sequential regularity. In two experiments, we manipulated the likelihood that a specific conflict, a premature response, occurred in a sequential version of the Number Reduction Task (NRT). Experiment 1 demonstrated that a longer RSI leads to a larger number of premature responses and to more verbal report than a shorter RSI. However, this effect of the RSI on verbal report was removed when participants were discouraged from emitting premature responses. Experiment 2 revealed that artificially inducing premature responses leads to an increase in verbal report, but only when premature responses are introduced late in training. Overall, the findings strongly support the assumptions of the UEH.

Data-driven sequence learning or search: What are the prerequisites for the generation of explicit sequence knowledge?

“…Reliable evidence for a possible interaction of this kind between implicit sequence knowledge and the effectiveness of unexpected events as triggers of search processes has been published by Haider and Frensch (2009). They showed that the insertion of computer generated (i.e., allegedly) premature correct responses increased the probability of rule detection late in training to a larger extent than during the first experimental blocks.…”

“…In search for the causes of these unexpected changes in their behavior, participants were then likely to discover the repeating sequence structure(s). Haider and Frensch (2009) manipulated the occurrence of unexpected events more directly and demonstrated that artificially induced (computer generated) premature responses can increase the availability of reportable knowledge about a task regularity.…”

“…According to the so-called unexpected-event hypothesis (see , 2009, explicit knowledge about an incidentally experienced regularity is generated by a controlled search in addition to regular task processing. This search is triggered by unexpected events that occur during task processing and call for an explanation.…”

“…According to the second theoretical approach (see , 2009; cf. also Clapper & Bower, 2002;Sun, Merrill, & Peterson, 2001), there is no such direct relation between the quality or strength of memory representations acquired through incidental learning and conscious awareness of the regularity.…”

“…two kinds of mechanisms for the generation of this explicit knowledge have been proposed in the literature. First, a sequence representation may become explicit when its strength reaches a certain level (cleeremans, 2006), and secondly, explicit knowledge may emerge as the result of a search process that is triggered by unexpected events that occur during task processing and require an explanation (the unexpected-event hypothesis; haider & Frensch, 2009). our study aimed at systematically exploring the contribution of both mechanisms to the generation of explicit sequence knowledge in an incidental learning situation.…”