Intentional artificial grammar learning: When does it work?
Abstract
Actively searching for the rules of an artificial grammar has often been shown to produce no more knowledge than memorising exemplars without knowing that they have been generated by a grammar. The present study investigated whether this ineffectiveness of intentional learning could be overcome by removing dual task demands and providing participants with more specific instructions. The results only showed a positive effect of learning intentionally for participants specifically instructed to find out which letters are allowed to follow each other. These participants were also unaffected by a salient feature. In contrast, for participants who did not know what kind of structure to expect, intentional learning was not more effective than incidental learning and knowledge acquisition was guided by salience.
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In the psychology literature, there are tasks where verbal thinking hurts human performance.
“To explore our approach, we first draw on the psychology literature for a collection of tasks where verbal thinking hurts human performance (Schooler & Engstler-Schooler, 1990 ;Dijksterhuis, 2004;Van den Bos & Poletiek, 2008, inter alia).”
From Mind Your Step (by Step): Chain-of-Thought can Reduce Performance on Tasks where Thinking Makes Humans Worse (2024) · cites this paper as Van den Bos & Poletiek, 2008
Cites
Synthetic grammar learning: Implicit rule abstraction or explicit fragmentary knowledge?
Perruchet, P., & Pacteau, C. (1990) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · doi:10.1037/0096-3445.119.3.264 · Cited by 526 · see citing works
On the relationship between implicit and explicit modes in the learning of a complex rule structure.
Reber, A. S., Kassin, S. M., Lewis, S., & Cantor, G. (1980) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory · doi:10.1037/0278-7393.6.5.492 · Cited by 367 · see citing works
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Liu, R., Geng, J., Wu, A. J., Sucholutsky, I., Lombrozo, T., & Griffiths, T. L. (2024) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2410.21333 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“We use the original artificial grammar learning task shared by Reber & Lewis (1977), Whittlesea & Dorken (1993), and Van den Bos & Poletiek (2008) to test models.”
Influential
- Authors
- van den Bos, E., & Poletiek, F. H.
- Affiliations
- Leiden University (NL)
- ORCID
- Poletiek, Fenna H.
- Venue
- European Journal of Cognitive Psychology
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2008-07
- Volume
- 20
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 793-806
- ISSN
- 0954-1446 (ISSN-L)
- 1464-0635
- OpenAlex
- W2081098027
- Cited by
- 10
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 2
- FWCI
- 0.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The European Journal of Cognitive Psychology (publishedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Keywords
- artificial grammar learning, intentional learning, incidental learning, dual-task interference, explicit instruction, salience
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