Recollection, fluency, and the explicit/implicit distinction in artificial grammar learning.

In this article, the authors propose that both implicit memory and implicit learning phenomena can be explained by a common set of principles, in particular via participants' strategic use of recollective and fluency heuristics. In a series of experiments, it was demonstrated that manipulating processing fluency had an impact on classification decisions in an artificial grammar learning task (Experiments 1, 2, 4, and 7), showing that participants were using a fluency heuristic. Under identical conditions, however, this manipulation had no effect on recognition decisions (Experiments 3 and 5), consistent with a greater default reliance on recollection. Most significant, the authors also showed that a fluency effect can be induced in recognition (Experiments 4-6) and can be eliminated in classification (Experiment 7).