Self-learning: bottom-up contributions to self-knowledge from semantic and procedural information routes
Date
2022
Authors
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
In examining the self, people often first intuitively consider tangible things from memories, such as episodes from life, or extracted understandings about the self, such as declarative self-labels or preferences. However, psychology suggests that people also have an implicit side to the self—things like associations, habits, and emotions, that appear through decisions and behavior, but may not be readily articulable. Importantly, various kinds of explicit and implicit knowledge are traceable to distinct kinds of learning mechanisms, cues, and manners of cognitive and behavioral expression. In particular, implicit learning can occur through semantic (e.g., adjectives, associations, and traits) as well as procedural (e.g., reward learning, habits, routines, and probabilistic classification) routes. Extant self-literature has focused mainly on implicit semantic learning (e.g., “self” + “science” versus “self” + “liberal arts”; or “self” + “good” versus “self” + “bad”). Yet, basic science animal research and social psychology focused on cognition about others collectively suggest that both semantic and procedural routes play a role in self-related learning. Comparatively, semantic knowledge may be incorporated into individuals’ self-concepts relatively more easily, however procedural knowledge also stands to contribute to the self in non-trivial ways. Self-perception literature suggests that when individuals introspect on their habits they may draw inferences regarding their motives, as well as their personal dispositions, which also inform explicit self-knowledge. Taking these factors together, the primary purpose of the present four studies is to establish that both semantic and procedural kinds of input contribute to self-related learning at an implicit level, as well as to demonstrate that these modes can be encoded simultaneously. Further, this work will also explore how, through cued introspection, procedural learning (relative to semantic learning) may influence the self-concept.
Description
Keywords
Identity, Memory, Implicit learning, Reward learning, Procedural learning