On the failure to Demonstrate Simultaneous Irrelevant Sequence Learning (2014)

Undergraduates: Ryan Brady, Chris M Foster

Faculty Advisor: Kelly Giovanello
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

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Many reports have been aimed at addressing the degree of automaticity involved in implicit sequence learning. Deroost et al. (2008) showed evidence that during the Serial Reaction Time (SRT) task, participants can implicitly acquire sequence specific knowledge of a complex relevant sequence, while concurrently learning an equally complex irrelevant sequence they are told to ignore. We aimed to investigate the temporal onset of irrelevant sequence learning by extending this paradigm to measure the amount of irrelevant information learned at different time points during the SRT task. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with a complex second order relevant sequence and a simple first order irrelevant sequence and learning was measured after 7 and 12 blocks in separate conditions. In Experiment 2, participants were presented with a complex second order sequence for both relevant and irrelevant stimuli, and learning was measured after 14 and 19 blocks in separate conditions. Results indicated that across all 4 conditions between the two experiments, no significant learning of the irrelevant sequence was found. These results are not in line with the findings of Deroost et al. (2008). We suggest that simultaneous learning of an irrelevant sequence, whether complex or simple, is not as robust as previously suggested.