Abstract
Implicit learning of sequential structures has been investigated mostly for visual, spatial, or motor learning, but rarely for temporal structure learning. The few experiments investigating temporal structure learning have concluded that temporal structures can be learned only when coupled with another structural dimension, such as musical pitch or spatial location. In these studies, the temporal structures were without metrical organization and were dependent upon participants’ response times (Response-to-Stimulus Intervals). In our study, two experiments investigated temporal structure learning based on Inter-Onset-Intervals in the presence of an uncorrelated second dimension (ordinal structure) with metrically organized temporal structures. Our task was an adaptation of the classical Serial Reaction Time paradigm, using an implicit task in the auditory domain (syllable identification). Reaction times (RT) revealed that participants learned the temporal structures over the exposure blocks (decrease in RT) without a correlated ordinal dimension. The introduction of a test block with a novel temporal structure slowed RT and exemplified the typical implicit learning profile. Post-test results suggested that participants did not have explicit knowledge of the metrical temporal structures. These findings provide the first evidence of the learning of temporal structure with an uncorrelated ordinal structure, and set a foundation for further investigation of temporal cognition.
Highlights
What do gymnastics, music, and language have in common? All three have sequential structure; events occur in a defined order with specific timing
Our results revealed that participants learned the metrically organized temporal patterns, regardless of the metrical grouping
For the post-silence events, which should be the most difficult events to predict because of the longer temporal interval (e.g., Eisler et al, 2008), participants in the duple meters (DM) exposure group successfully demonstrated learning of the temporal pattern: reaction time (RT) decreased significantly over exposure blocks and increased for the test block. This learning of post-silence event timing was not observed for the triple meters (TM) exposure group. These findings suggest that the DM context enabled participants to form a metrical grid underlying the temporal events, aiding anticipation of the longer event timing
Summary
Music, and language have in common? All three have sequential structure; events occur in a defined order (ordinal structure) with specific timing (temporal structure). No evidence of temporal structure learning was found in the presence of a random or uncorrelated ordinal structure; temporal structure learning was seen only when the temporal and ordinal patterns were perfectly correlated or systematically related These results were obtained whether the temporal intervals were based on RSIs (Buchner and Steffens, 2001; Shin and Ivry, 2002) or IOIs (Shin and Ivry, 2002; O’Reilly et al, 2008). Our study investigates the learning of metrical temporal structures with an uncorrelated ordinal structure: the temporal structure is implemented with a series of spoken syllables presented in random order
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