1.  Serial Reaction Time Learning in Preschool- and School-Age Children Thomas and Nelson, 2001

2. Purpose  To examine visuomotor sequence learning in children  To assess the development of explicit awareness in children

3. Brief Background  2 Types of sequence learning: Implicit:  Unaware of presence of sequence Explicit:  Conscious awareness of presence of sequence

4. Experiment 1: Methods  Subjects:  22 7-year-olds  20 10-year-olds  Conditions:  Pre-exposure  No Exposure  Measurements:  “Reaction time” Pre- Exposure No Exposure 7-year-olds7-y.o. Pre-exposure 7-y.o. No exposure 10-year-olds10-y.o. Pre-exposure 10-y.o. No exposure

5. Experiment 1: Procedure

6. Experiment 1: Results

7. Experiment 1: Results Cont’d

8. Experiment 1: Conclusion  7- and 10-year olds demonstrate significant learning of a visuomotor sequence using a standard SRT task  Significant interaction of age and explicit awareness  10-year-olds with explicit knowledge: significantly more anticipations  Implicit: anticipations did not differ by age

9. Experiment 2  Purpose: To further address the developmental time course of sequence learning mechanisms

10. Experiment 2: Methods  Subjects  46 4-year-olds  Conditions  Pre-exposure  No Exposure  Measurements  Variant of the SRT task  Quadrant presentation

11. Experiment 2: Procedure ×

12. Experiment 2: Results

13. Experiment 2: Results Cont’d

15. Experiment 2: Conclusion  4-year-old children demonstrate significant learning of a visuomotor sequence using a variant SRT task  No difference between pre-exposure and no exposure conditions in acquisition of explicit awareness of sequence

16. Discussion  4-10-y.o. demonstrated significant learning of a sequence in a SRT paradigm while maintaining a high level of response accuracy  Complete explicit knowledge demonstrated larger sequence-specific learning  The degree of anticipatory responding increased with age  4-year-olds showed smallest overall sequence learning effects

17. Limitations  Cannot directly compare experiment 1 and 2  Different task  Experiment 1: allowed child to use any finger combination to make responses  First block following exposure was random  Interference?  2 blocks enough practice to learn sequence?