For "brilliant answers" only

Method

Materials

CogLab (2007) provided the implicit learning experiment via their Visual Search test. I was able to access the test software from my personal computer. The test consisted of approximately ninety-six trials each containing a varying number of blue and green circles and squares. The first set of forty-eight trials known as the feature searches included only blue circles and squares as distracters. The second set of forty-eight trials known as the conjunctive searches included blue circles, blue squares, and green squares as distracters.

Procedures

The object of the test was to identify whether or not a green circle was present on each screen as quickly as possible. The presence of a green circle target on the screen was identified by pressing the back slash (/) key. The absence of a green circle target on the screen was identified by pressing the “z” key. I moved from one screen to the next by pressing the space bar.

Results

The test results for the feature searches where all the distracters were blue showed that the response time did not increase very much despite the number of distracters on the screen. Even when the green circle target was not present, the response time did not increase. The results for the conjunctive trials where the distracters were both green and blue showed that as the number of distracters increased the response time increased – meaning that it took longer to respond when there were many distracters. The response time actually doubled when the target was not present. The data tables and the data plot reflects a disparaging difference in response times between the feature searches and the conjunctive searches. There is also a profound difference in response time between the target present and target absent conjunctive searches.