SRT and ASRT: Similar Tasks Tapping Distinct Learning Mechanisms?
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SRT and ASRT: Similar Tasks Tapping Distinct Learning Mechanisms?

Abstract

The Serial Reaction Time (SRT) and the Alternating Serial Reaction Time (ASRT) tasks are widely used assessments of sequence learning (SL) wherein repetitive patterning of visual- spatial elements leads participants to anticipate locations of subsequent elements in the series. In the SRT task, the predictive dependencies involve adjacent elements whereas in the ASRT task they involve nonadjacent elements, due to the insertion of random elements into the pattern. We tested college students (N = 74) to explore whether the SRT and the ASRT tasks relied on similar underlying learning mechanisms while also examining associations between task performance and nonverbal fluid intelligence, visual-spatial working memory, and sentence processing ability. There was no correlation in performance across the two SL tasks (r = –.18), suggesting distinct learning mechanisms. Whereas 95.9% of participants demonstrated sequence-specific learning in the SRT task, only 64.9% demonstrated learning in the ASRT task. SL in the ASRT but not the SRT task was associated with nonverbal intelligence, visual-spatial working memory, and sentence comprehension. The observed results run counter to the claim that the ASRT relies only on implicit learning mechanisms presumed to be unrelated to executive functioning or general intelligence.

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