Examining Three-Way Binding as a Constraint on Statistical Learning

Abstract

Models of statistical learning do not place constraints on the complexity of the memory structure that is formed during statistical learning, while empirical studies using the statistical learning task have only examined the formation of simple memory structures (e.g., two-way binding). On the contrary, the memory literature, using explicit memory tasks, has shown that people are able to form memory structures of different complexities and that more complex memory structures (e.g., three-way binding) are usually more difficult to form. We examined whether complex memory structures such as three-way bindings can be implicitly formed through statistical learning by utilizing manipulations that have been used in the paired-associate learning paradigm (e.g., AB/ABr condition). Through three experiments, we show that while simple two-way binding structures can be formed implicitly, three-way bindings can only be formed with explicit instructions. The results indicate that explicit attention may be a necessary component in forming three-way memory structures and suggest that existing models should place constraints on the representational structures that can be formed.