This research demonstrates a process of acquisition of information about a complex pattern of stimuli and the facilitating influence of this knowledge on subjects' subsequent performance. In two experiments, subjects were exposed for 12 hr to a sequence of frames containing a target, and their task was to search for the target in each frame. The sequence was divided into logical blocks of seven trials each. Locations of the target in the seventh trial of each block were predictable on the basis of the specific sequences of target locations in four out of the previous six trials. Pilot studies and extensive postexperimental interviews indicated that none of the subjects noticed anything even close to the real nature of the manipulation (i.e., the pattern). However, the predicted patterns of latency of their responses to the critical trials indicate that they had, in fact, acquired some intuitive (unconscious) knowledge about how the pattern of prior trials was related to the critical trial. The phenomenon is discussed as a ubiquitous unconscious process involved in the development of both elementary and high-level cognitive skills.

The authors review and summarize evidence for the process of acquisition of information outside of conscious awareness (covariations, nonconscious indirect and interactive inferences, self-perpetuation of procedural knowledge). Data indicate that as compared with consciously controlled cognition, the nonconscious information-acquisition processes are not only much faster but are also structurally more sophisticated, in that they are capable of efficient processing of multidimensional and interactive relations between variables. Those mechanisms of nonconscious acquisition of information provide a major channel for the development of procedural knowledge that is indispensable for such important aspects of cognitive functioning as encoding and interpretation of stimuli and the triggering of emotional reactions.

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Processing of covariation (among features) present in stimulus material was investigated. Subjects were unable to articulate the manipulated covariation between verbally described psychological characteristics and appearance of a set of stimulus persons. Based on the two-stage question answering model (Glucksberg & McCloskey, 1981), it was hypothesized that if the information related to the manipulated covariation was processed and registered, it would result in an increase of processing time for the questions that might be considered relevant to the covariation. The pattern of response latencies obtained in each of 3 experiments conformed exactly to the predictions. In 2 of these experiments, effects of the stimulus material on subjects' subsequent judgments were found, consistent with the model. Subjects behaved as if they had "learned" the rule (implied by the covariation) and followed it in their subsequent judgments. The demonstrated phenomenon pertains to an important and presumably ubiquitous aspect of processing categorical information.

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