Greene A J, Spellman B A, Dusek J A, Eichenbaum H B, Levy W B
University of Virginia, Charlottesville 22908-0420, USA.
Mem Cognit. 2001 Sep;29(6):893-902. doi: 10.3758/bf03196418.
Learning complex relationships among items and representing them flexibly have been shown to be highly similar in function and structure to conscious forms of learning. However, it is unclear whether conscious learning is essential for the exhibition of flexibility in learning. Successful performance on the transitive inference task requires representational flexibility. Participants learned four overlapping premise pairs (A > B, B > C, C > D, D > E) that could be encoded separately or as a sequential hierarchy (A > B > C > D > E). Some participants (informed) were told prior to training that the task required an inference made from premise pairs. Other participants (uninformed) were told simply that they were to learn a series of pairs by trial and error. Testing consisted of unreinforced trials that included the non-adjacent pair, B versus D, to assess capacity for transitive inference. Not surprisingly, those in the informed condition outperformed those in the uninformed condition. After completion of training and testing, uninformed participants were given a postexperimental questionnaire to assess awareness of the task structure. In contrast with expectations, successful performance on the transitive inference task for uninformed participants does not depend on or correlate with postexperimental awareness. The present results suggest that relational learning tasks do not necessarily require conscious processes.
研究表明，学习项目之间的复杂关系并灵活地呈现它们，在功能和结构上与有意识的学习形式高度相似。然而，尚不清楚有意识的学习对于学习灵活性的展现是否至关重要。传递性推理任务的成功完成需要表征灵活性。参与者学习了四个重叠的前提对（A > B、B > C、C > D、D > E），这些前提对可以分别编码，也可以编码为一个顺序层次结构（A > B > C > D > E）。一些参与者（知情组）在训练前被告知该任务需要根据前提对进行推理。其他参与者（不知情组）只是被告知他们要通过试错来学习一系列对。测试包括未强化的试验，其中包括非相邻对B与D，以评估传递性推理能力。不出所料，知情组的参与者表现优于不知情组的参与者。在完成训练和测试后，对不知情的参与者进行了实验后问卷调查，以评估他们对任务结构的意识。与预期相反，不知情参与者在传递性推理任务上的成功表现并不取决于实验后意识，也与之无关。目前的结果表明，关系学习任务不一定需要有意识的过程。
