Conscious knowledge and changes in performance in sequence learning: evidence against dissociation.

Two experiments examined the relation between explicit knowledge and motor performance on the serial reaction time task developed by Nissen and Bullemer (1987). Tests of free recall and recognition of sequence components revealed that reliable explicit knowledge was acquired after an amount of practice that was hardly sufficient to improve mean motor performance. In addition, reaction time improvement was limited to the ending trials of the 3- and 4-trial sequence components that Ss recalled or recognized. These results were replicated in Experiment 3, in which Ss were trained under attentional distraction in the task developed by Cohen, Ivry, and Keele (1990). Overall, these findings undermine the most direct experimental support for the widespread view that conscious knowledge and performance in sequence-learning tasks tap 2 independent knowledge bases in normal Ss.