Implicit Learning in Children and Adults With Williams Syndrome

Abstract

In comparison to explicit learning, implicit learning is hypothesized to be a phylogenetically older form of learning that is important in early developmental processes (e.g., natural language acquisition, socialization)and relatively impervious to individual differences in age and IQ. We examined implicit learning in a group of children and adults (9.49 years of age)with Williams syndrome (WS)and in a comparison group of typically developing individuals matched for chronological age. Participants were tested in an artificial-grammar learning paradigm and in a rotor-pursuit task. For both groups, implicit learning was largely independent of age. Both groups showed evidence of implicit learning but the comparison group outperformed the WS group on both tasks. Performance advantages for the comparison group were no longer significant when group differences in working memory or nonverbal intelligence were held constant.

The impact of signal-to-noise ratio on contextual cueing in children and adults

“…This conclusion is consistent with the proposition that implicit learning in general should be age independent (e.g., Amso & Davidow, 2012;Clohessy, Posner, & Rothbart, 2001;Don, Schellenberg, Reber, DiGirolamo, & Wang, 2003;Meulemans & Van der Linden, 1998;Reber, 1992;Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996;Thomas & Nelson, 2001). On the other hand, this position is qualified by two other studies (Couperus, Hunt, Nelson, & Thomas, 2011;Yang & Merrill, 2014).…”

Do children with developmental dyslexia have impairments in implicit learning?

“…Typical children showed intact implicit learning in accord with previous studies (Gomez & Gerken, 1999;Marcus, Vijayan, Bandi Rao, & Vishton, 1999;Don, Schellenberg, Reber, DiGirolamo, & Wang, 2003). On the contrary, developmental dyslexic children's performance was poor under both instructions.…”

Does complexity matter? Meta-analysis of learner performance in artificial grammar tasks

“…In Evans et al (2009), we excluded the second version of the experiment that required participants to choose an ice cream flavor according to the sequences they learned in the training phase. We only used the version that implemented the classic AGL task to avoid confounding variables related to changes in procedures.In articles examining special populations, for example persons with dyslexia (Rüsseler et al, 2006), Williams' Syndrome (Don et al, 2003), or other atypically developing individuals, we included only the results of the control group because the present study explored typical populations only.In multisession AGL articles (e.g., Reber, 1967; de Vries et al, 2010), only the results of the first session were included to avoid confounding variables related to multisession procedures.With respect to articles that utilized both explicit and implicit instructions (Gebauer and Mackintosh, 2007; Scott and Dienes, 2008), only the results of the implicit stimuli were used to avoid inconsistencies between the results of these two methods. Furthermore, as relatively fewer studies involved explicit learning, comparison was impossible.…”

“…In articles examining special populations, for example persons with dyslexia (Rüsseler et al, 2006), Williams' Syndrome (Don et al, 2003), or other atypically developing individuals, we included only the results of the control group because the present study explored typical populations only.…”