Introduction
The topic of this report is the so-called “implicit learning” which we define, referring to the study by Endel Tulving as the state when a person possesses the knowledge and is able of practical implementation thereof even though there is no actual specific reference in the memory of the person to this very knowledge (Goldstein, 2007). To put it simply, implicit learning is observed when a person acts or thinks properly in a situation implementing some knowledge, whose origin is unknown to that very person (Goldstein, 2007).
Main Body
The experiment reported in this paper has been carried out in order to find out how the implicit learning works and how it manifests itself in the performance of the experiment participants over the number of trials of the activity they have been suggested to do. The class experiment included 16 participants who were interchangeably divided into the so-called Random and Pattern groups. The essence of the experiment lied in the fact that participants have been presented with the four specific keys on a keyboard and have been asked to press one of them at a time to see a red circle appearing on the computer display.
The appearance of the circles for those participants that constituted the Random group was random as well, while the Pattern group participants had to find out a certain rule, i. e. the order in which the circles appear on the four locations. The rule was intended to be 3 4 2 3 1 2 1 4 3 2 4 1. Every participant has had 24 trials in the experiment in order to state that rule and find out the actual order of the circles’ appearance. It has been hypothesized that due to the work of implicit learning, the mean reaction times (RT) will decrease from trial to trial to manifest the fact that participants of the pattern group have managed to catch the rule, although they were unable to clearly formulate or write it down.
In the outcome, the experiment manifested the actual work of implicit learning in its course. As for the group results, 16 participants of the Randon group and 16 of the Pattern group manifested the steady decrease of RT they needed for finding out the correct appearance sequence of circles:
My personal results in the experiment demonstrated the same progress of implicit learning as in the group with the only difference that the scopes of my personal experiment and the group one differ substantially in the possibility to generalize them:
Graph 3 demonstrates the very progress of my implicit learning showing how with every trial the time needed to react correctly to the circle appearance decreased. It shows that in the middle of the experiment I tried to find out whether there is actually a rule of circle occurrence which demanded more time for decisions. However, after it the time was on the permanent decrease as even being unable to formulate that rule I saw that the circles appeared in a certain sequence. The table presented above shows specifically the time needed for correct answers trial by trial.
Conclusion
Considering the results, it is obvious that I realized my participation in the Pattern group only after the half of the trials, with which I was not surprised and saw the opportunity to react correctly with the least possible time for it.
References
Goldstein, E. B. (2007). Cognitive Psychology: connecting mind, research, and evertday experience. Wadsworth Publishing; 2 edition.