Redington, M. (2000). Not evidence for separable controlled and
automatic influences in artificial grammar learning. Commentary on Higham,
Vokey and Pritchard. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
129, 471-475.
Abstract
Higham, Vokey and Pritchard claim to provide evidence for
separable controlled and automatic processes in artificial
grammar learning. I argue that their results are compatible
with a single controlled influence; participants might
mistakenly identify more grammatical items than
nongrammatical items as belonging to the other grammar
because the grammars are very similar to each other, and the
nongrammatical items are relatively highly dissimilar.
Participants' knowledge may be ambiguous, rather than
automatic. I further argue that even if Higham et al.'s
data do support automatic effects, opposition logic, in this
case, cannot be said to have succeeded where dissociation
logic has failed, because it is used to address the issue of
whether participants have conscious control over the
knowledge they acquire, rather than whether they possess
conscious awareness of that knowledge.
Back to publications ...
Last modified: Dec 19, 2000