Parallel Acquisition of Uncorrelated Sequences does Not Provide Firm Evidence for a Modular Sequence-Learning System

Abstract

Dual-systems theories of sequence learning assume that sequence learning may proceed within a unidimensional learning system that is immune to cross-dimensional interference because information is processed and represented in dimension-specific, encapsulated modules. Important evidence for such modularity comes from studies investigating the absence or presence of interference between multiple uncorrelated sequences (e.g., a sequence of color stimuli and a sequence of motor keypresses). Here we question the premise that the parallel acquisition of uncorrelated sequences provides convincing evidence for a modularized learning system. In contrast, we demonstrate that parallel acquisition of multiple uncorrelated sequences is well predicted by a computational model that assumes a single learning system with joint representations of stimulus and response features.

Keywords

• implicit learning
• single-system and dual-systems models
• encapsulated processing modules