Implicit learning of what comes when and where within a sequence: The time-course of acquiring serial position-item and item-item associations to represent serial order
DOI: 10.5709/acp-0106-0
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
Get this paper ↗ (DOI — opens at the source; we link to it, we don't host it)
Summary
This study investigates the cognitive mechanisms underlying implicit sequence learning, specifically addressing the debate between "chaining" models (which rely on item-item associations) and "serial position" models (which rely on associations between items and their ordinal position in a sequence). While previous research established that both types of associations exist in implicit learning, this paper aims to determine the time-course of their acquisition and their relative contributions to performance improvements. The authors applied methods from working memory research to an implicit serial reaction time (SRT) task to disentangle these representations. The experiment involved 21 participants who completed three sessions of a visual search task. Participants responded to the tilt of a target stimulus (a 'T') appearing at one of 32 screen locations, amidst distractors. The task consisted of training blocks with fixed sequences (deterministic item-item and position-item contingencies) and random sequences, followed by transfer blocks designed to isolate specific knowledge types. Transfer blocks included "ordinal-only" trials, which preserved the serial position of a trained item but changed its preceding item, and "order-only" trials, which preserved the preceding item but placed the target at an incorrect serial position. Reaction times (RTs) in these transfer conditions were compared to control trials with no learned associations to estimate the strength of position-item and item-item knowledge, respectively. The results demonstrated that participants acquired both item-item and serial position-item associations during implicit learning. Crucially, the analysis revealed a distinct developmental trajectory for these representations. Serial position information played a significant role very early in the learning process, whereas inter-item associations increasingly controlled behavior in later stages. The authors found that neither type of association alone could fully explain the observed learning-related performance increases; rather, the simultaneous use of both knowledge types was necessary to account for the data. This indicates that implicit sequence representation is not exclusive to one mechanism but involves a dynamic integration of positional and transitional cues. The significance of these findings lies in resolving a long-standing theoretical conflict regarding the functional stimulus in serial order. By demonstrating that both positional codes and chaining mechanisms are utilized, and by characterizing their temporal dynamics, the study bridges the gap between implicit learning and working memory research. It suggests that implicit learning shares representational structures with explicit memory systems, challenging the view that implicit processes rely solely on associative chaining. This provides a more comprehensive model of how humans store and retrieve sequential structures, highlighting the complementary roles of ordinal position and item transitions in cognitive flexibility.
Key finding
Implicit sequence learning involves the simultaneous acquisition of both serial position-item and item-item associations, with positional cues appearing early and inter-item associations gaining control in later learning stages.
Methodology
lab_experiment
Sample size: 21
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via author_sweep_intake on 2026-05-28.
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | author_sweep | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-28 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 11 | 2026-06-06 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-28 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-04 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 15 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
Topics
Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.