Raphaelle Malassis
Lyon Neuroscience Research Center · MEMOTeam
PhD
Disentangling Explicit from Implicit Learning: A Comparative Approach
Psychology of human learning distinguishes implicit learning, the incidental acquisition of a new skill resulting in knowledge that is unconscious, and explicit learning, a more effortful form of learning leading to conscious knowledge. Despite that a comparative approach is essential to better understand their conditions of emergence, functions and underlying mechanisms, the hypothesis of a similar distinction between implicit and explicit forms of learning in other species has been largely overlooked so far. In this talk, I will defend the idea that we can address these questions by adapting to these species existing paradigms used to probe implicit and explicit learning of sequential regularities in humans. I will illustrate this approach by presenting the results of a series of experiments conducted in human adults, children, brown-tufted capuchin monkeys (Sapajus sp.) and guinea baboons (Papio papio), targeting different properties of implicit and explicit learning. The perspectives opened by this new research area will be discussed.
