THE CONSCIOUS, THE UNCONSCIOUS, AND FAMILIARITY

Scott, Ryan B and Dienes, Zoltan (2008) THE CONSCIOUS, THE UNCONSCIOUS, AND FAMILIARITY. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.

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Abstract

This paper examines the role of subjective familiarity in the implicit and explicit learning of artificial grammars. Experiment 1 finds that objective measures of similarity (including fragment frequency and repetition structure) predict ratings of familiarity, familiarity ratings predict grammaticality judgments, and that the extremity of familiarity ratings predicts confidence. Familiarity is further shown to predict judgments in the absence of confidence, hence contributing to above chance guessing. Experiment 2 finds that confidence develops as participants refine their knowledge of the distribution of familiarity, and that differences in familiarity can be exploited prior to confidence developing. Experiment 3 finds that familiarity is consciously exploited to make grammaticality judgments including those made without confidence, and that familiarity can in some instances influence participants’ grammaticality judgments apparently without their awareness. All three experiments find that knowledge distinct from familiarity is derived only under deliberate learning conditions. The results provide decisive evidence that familiarity is the essential source of knowledge in AGL while also supporting a dual process model of implicit and explicit learning.

Comments/Discussion

This paper examines the role of familiarity in the transition between unconscious and conscious states of knowing.

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