The case for rules in reasoning

Smith, Edward B.

doi:10.1016/0364-0213(92)90016-n

Cited by 37 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 5 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Anderson (1993), for instance, states that ''abstraction refers to the generality of production rules. Production rules do not require that a specific stimulus be present; the rules will apply in any stimulus condition that satisfies the pattern specification of the condition'' (p. 35, see also Manza & Reber, 1997;Smith, Langston, & Nisbett, 1992). This definition therefore predicts that, if a rule is at play, we should not observe any loss of performance in a transfer situation in which the surface features of the material are changed between transfer and test.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Processing abstract sequence structure: learning without knowing, or knowing without learning?

Boyer

Destrebecqz

Cleeremans

2005

Psychological Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Constant interaction with a dynamic environment-from riding a bicycle to segmenting speech-makes sensitivity to the sequential structure of the world a fundamental dimension of information processing. Accounts of sequence learning vary widely, with some authors arguing that parsing and segmentation processes are central, and others proposing that sequence learning involves mere memorization. In this paper, we argue that sequence knowledge is essentially statistical in nature, and that sequence learning involves simple associative prediction mechanisms. We focus on a choice reaction situation introduced by Lee (1997), in which participants were exposed to material that follows a single abstract rule, namely that stimuli are selected randomly, but never appear more than once in a legal sequence. Perhaps surprisingly, people can learn this rule very well. Or can they? We offer a conceptual replication of the original finding, but a very different interpretation of the results, as well as simulation work that makes it clear how highly abstract dimensions of the stimulus material can in fact be learned based on elementary associative mechanisms. We conclude that, when relevant, memory is optimized to facilitate responding to events that have not occurred recently, and that sequence learning in general always involves sensitivity to repetition distance.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Processing abstract sequence structure: learning without knowing, or knowing without learning?

Boyer

Destrebecqz

Cleeremans

2005

Psychological Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…On the one hand, a high variance could make non-ADJ repetitions less salient, preventing their generalization. On the other hand, a high variance reduces the frequency of specific patterns and following Smith et al (1992), this should be beneficial to rule use. Children failed to generalize the relational information while they processed items with high variance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Artificial grammar learning in children: abstraction of rules or sensitivity to perceptual features?

Witt

Vinter

2011

Psychological Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We examined sensitivity to grammatical sequences of colors in an artificial grammar learning task in a sample of 120 children aged between 5 and 8 years. The aim of the experiment was to test whether the children would preferentially learn the specific salient features of the items they were exposed to or the rules that generated these items. The children were divided into two experimental groups (identical grammar but training items differing in their surface features) and a control group (random items). The results showed that regardless of age, participants learned the most frequent salient features of the items, as well as some kind of abstract relational information. However, the 8-year-olds presented a more complex result profile, with one of the experimental groups apparently developing sensitivity to grammatical rules. These results are discussed with reference to the main current models of implicit learning. Overall, the results provided more support for stimulus-specific processing models than for rule-based models.

show abstract

“…First, participants with a diagnosed strategy shift in the training phase are likely to transfer their newly adopted strategy to stimuli they have never encountered before; in other words, the new strategy is item-general (Anderson, 1993;Smith, Langston, & Nisbett, 1992;Whittlesea & Dorken, 1993. Second, when asked to verbalize the characteristics of the alphabetic strings immediately after the new strategy has been adopted, participants with a diagnosed strategy shift are very likely to be able to do so.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%