Classroom Teaching,Implicit Learning and the Deleterious Effects of Inappropriate Explication

Abstract

Eighty-five senior cadets participated in a class exercise involving complex decision-making in a natural context. One experimental group was induced to employ explicit decisional processing and another was allowed to simply guess appropriate responses. Decision accuracy was measured at three levels of information availability. Both groups performed significantly above the level of chance when no reliable, objective information was provided. However, neither accurate base rate information nor conditional probabilities increased the decision accuracy of either experimental group. The group allowed to simply guess made significantly more accurate responses than did the group induced to explicate their decisional choices. These results provide convergent support for the dissociation of implicit and explicit knowledge. The exercise itself was a useful combination of research and experiential learning and encouraged classroom discussions of many issues related to human decision making.