Structure transfer and consolidation in visual implicit learning

  1. Dominik Garber
  2. József Fiser  Is a corresponding author
  1. Department of Cognitive Science, Center for Cognitive Computation, Central European University, Austria
8 figures, 4 tables and 1 additional file

Figures

Overview of the experimental setup.

Training Phase 1: Participants passively observed a stream of scenes made up of abstract shapes (lower panel). Unbeknown to the participants, shapes in the scene appeared only in pairs of fixed spatial configurations defined by the Inventory (upper panel). All pairs in Phase 1 had the same underlying structure of either horizontal or vertical orientation. The colors in the figure are only for illustration purposes; for the participants, all shapes were black. Break: After phase 1, there was a break that varied across the five experiments between 2 minutes and 24 hours. Participants spent the break either in asleep or awake condition. Training Phase 2: After the break, the participants were exposed to visual scenes made of a different set of abstract shapes. Half of the created pairs of the new inventory had horizontal, while the other half had vertical underlying structures. 2AFC Test Trials: After Phase 2, participants completed a series of 2AFC Test Trials, in which they had to decide if a real pair from the training phases or a foil pair, created by random combination of the shapes, was more familiar. Debriefing: Finally, participants answered open-ended questions about the experiment, which were used to assess whether they gained explicit knowledge about the presence of shape pairs.

Results of familiarity tests in Experiments 1–4.

Test results of the two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) trials in all four experiments are grouped on the x-axis according to whether the trials used shapes of the first or the second training and, within the second training, whether the pair in the trial had the same or different orientation structure as inventory pairs in the first training. The y-axis represents the proportion of correct responses in the 2AFC test trials. Arrows and text between the test results related to the two trainings convey the condition and length of the break period. Bars represent SEM, color coding indicates implicit and explicit subgroups of the participants. The horizontal dotted line denotes chance performance. Asterisks above bars denote significance levels from chance, while above lines, significance level comparing two conditions below the tips of the line. Legend of significance levels is shown in the lower-left corner. Signs of inequality below the comparison in the second training indicate the direction of effect.

Matched sample analysis of Experiments 1–4.

The structure of the figure is identical to that of Figures 1 and 2, with data for the explicit participants (orange bars) being the same as in Figure 1, while data for the implicit participants (striped purple bars) showing the subgroup of implicit participants from Experiment 1 whose combined performance matched the performance of the explicit participants on test trials of the first learning phase. The y-axes represent the proportion of correct responses in the 2AFC trials. Bars represent the mean (± SEM) for each type of pair (pairs of Phase 1 and same and novel structure pairs of Phase 2). The horizontal dashed line indicates chance performance.

Appendix 1—figure 1
Results of familiarity tests in Experiment 5 and Supplementary Experiment 1.

Test results of the two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) trials in both experiments are grouped on the x-axis according to whether the trials used shapes of the first or the second training and, within the second training, whether the pair in the trial had the same or different orientation structure as inventory pairs in the first training. The y-axis represents the proportion of correct responses in the 2AFC test trials. Bars represent SEM, color coding indicates implicit and explicit subgroups of the participants. The horizontal dotted line denotes chance performance. Asterisks above bars denote significance levels from chance, while above lines, significance level comparing two conditions below the tips of the line.

Appendix 1—figure 2
Violin plot version of Figure 2, depicting results of familiarity tests in Experiments 1–4.

The width of the violins corresponds to a smoothed version of the relative frequency of values in the dataset. The markers within the violins denote the mean and standard error. Test results of the two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) trials in all four experiments are grouped on the x-axis according to whether the trials used shapes of the first or the second training and, within the second training, whether the pair in the trial had the same or different orientation structure as inventory pairs in the first training. The y-axis represents the proportion of correct responses in the 2AFC test trials. Arrows and text between the test results related to the two trainings convey the condition and length of the break period. Legend of significance levels is shown in the lower-left corner. Signs of inequality below the comparison in the second training indicate the direction of effect.

Appendix 1—figure 3
Violin plot version of Figure 3, depicting results of familiarity tests in the matched data for Experiments 1–4.

The width of the violins corresponds to a smoothed version of the relative frequency of values in the dataset. The markers within the violins denote the mean and standard error. Test results of the two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) trials in all four experiments are grouped on the x-axis according to whether the trials used shapes of the first or the second training and, within the second training, whether the pair in the trial had the same or different orientation structure as inventory pairs in the first training. The y-axis represents the proportion of correct responses in the 2AFC test trials. Arrows and text between the test results related to the two trainings convey the condition and length of the break period. Legend of significance levels is shown in the lower-left corner. Signs of inequality below the comparison in the second training indicate the direction of effect.

Appendix 1—figure 4
Frequency distribution of country of residence and time zone for participants in Experiment 1.
Appendix 1—figure 5
Results of familiarity tests in Experiments 1–4 for the matched implicit sample plotted for all tested matching algorithms.

Test results of the two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) trials in both experiments are grouped on the x-axis according to whether the trials used shapes of the first or the second training and, within the second training, whether the pair in the trial had the same or different orientation structure as inventory pairs in the first training. The y-axis represents the proportion of correct responses in the 2AFC test trials. The horizontal dotted line denotes chance performance. Color coding indicates the used matching algorithm.

Tables

Appendix 1—table 1
Experiment 1: overview of balance metrics for the used matching algorithms.
Matching methodStandardized mean differenceVariance ratioeCDF meaneCDF max
Unbalanced0.4862.920.1690.358
NN with replacement–0.0020.950.0030.059
NN without replacement0.0781.310.0260.206
Optimal pair matching0.0781.310.0260.206
Optimal full matching–0.0181.050.0120.059
Coarsened exact matching–0.0211.120.0210.118
Subclassification–0.0491.190.0200.059
  1. eCDF, empirical cumulative density function.

Appendix 1—table 2
Experiment 2: overview of balance metrics for the used matching algorithms.
Matching methodStandardized mean differenceVariance ratioeCDF meaneCDF max
Unbalanced1.1252.9090.2730.548
NN with replacement0.4322.4240.1050.429
NN without replacement0.1031.0890.0300.238
Optimal pair matching0.4322.4240.1050.429
Optimal full matching0.1121.0790.0330.238
Coarsened exact matching0.1421.1300.0370.294
Subclassification0.2481.1750.0600.238
  1. eCDF, empirical cumulative density function.

Appendix 1—table 3
Experiment 3: overview of balance metrics for the used matching algorithms.
Matching methodStandardized mean differenceVariance ratioeCDF meaneCDF max
Unbalanced1.0673.2840.2900.49
NN with replacement0.2932.2600.0790.30
NN without replacement0.0430.9500.0180.25
Optimal pair matching0.2932.2600.0790.30
Optimal full matching0.0681.0730.0230.25
Coarsened exact matching0.0431.1610.0230.25
Subclassification0.0891.1060.0390.25
  1. eCDF, empirical cumulative density function.

Appendix 1—table 4
Experiment 4: overview of balance metrics for the used matching algorithms.
Matching methodStandardized mean differenceVariance ratioeCDF meaneCDF max
Unbalanced0.8195.3520.2220.494
NN with replacement0.4503.0060.1060.391
NN without replacement0.1641.3270.0430.304
Optimal pair matching0.4503.0060.1060.391
Optimal full matching0.1511.4790.0470.304
Coarsened exact matching0.0261.0990.0160.064
Subclassification0.2402.4040.0710.304
  1. eCDF, empirical cumulative density function.

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  1. Dominik Garber
  2. József Fiser
(2025)
Structure transfer and consolidation in visual implicit learning
eLife 13:RP100785.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.100785.4