Roujon, D. 1, 2 & Marescaux, P. 1, 2
1 LAPSCO - CNRS UMR 6024
2 UNIVERSITE BLAISE PASCAL - CLERMONT FERRAND - FRANCE
Is implicit learning a non-intentional cognitive process? Much empirical evidence supporting this issue comes from standard artificial grammar learning experiments. However, paradigms used in these studies offer some opportunities for explicit processing to occur. At encoding, time is allowed to examine the material to be memorized. At retrieval/use of the stored information, the usual grammaticality test requires to tell about the rule-based nature of the material. In two experiments, these potential pitfalls were eliminated or not by presenting grammatical strings either subliminally (29-ms), sub-optimally (100-ms) or optimally (5000-ms) at study time and by giving subsequently either a liking or a grammaticality test. In Experiment 1, new strings were rated individually for grammaticality or for liking. Grammatical items were rated higher than ungrammatical ones only in the grammaticality task and this, regardless of prior exposure duration. In Experiment 2, the new strings (grammatical and ungrammatical) were presented in a forced choice test. Grammatical items were preferred to ungrammatical items in all conditions. However, more grammatical items were chosen in the grammaticality compared to the liking test. Overall, the findings support that implicit learning can be purely non-intentional. Nevertheless, our cognitive system tends to exploit each opportunity for additional explicit treatment.