Evaluating the robustness of parameter estimates in cognitive models: A meta-analytic review of multinomial processing tree models across the multiverse of estimation methods.

Researchers have become increasingly aware that data-analysis decisions affect results. Here, we examine this issue systematically for multinomial processing tree (MPT) models, a popular class of cognitive models for categorical data. Specifically, we examine the robustness of MPT model parameter estimates that arise from two important decisions: the level of data aggregation (complete-pooling, no-pooling, or partial-pooling) and the statistical framework (frequentist or Bayesian).

Parallel Acquisition of Uncorrelated Sequences does Not Provide Firm Evidence for a Modular Sequence-Learning System.

Dual-systems theories of sequence learning assume that sequence learning may proceed within a unidimensional learning system that is immune to cross-dimensional interference because information is processed and represented in dimension-specific, encapsulated modules. Important evidence for such modularity comes from studies investigating the absence or presence of interference between multiple uncorrelated sequences (e.g.

Assumptions of the process-dissociation procedure are violated in implicit sequence learning.

In implicit sequence learning, a process-dissociation (PD) approach has been proposed to dissociate implicit and explicit learning processes. Applied to the popular generation task, participants perform two different task versions: instructions require generating the transitions that form the learned sequence; instructions require generating transitions other than those of the learned sequence. Whereas accurate performance under inclusion may be based on either implicit or explicit knowledge, avoiding to generate learned transitions requires controllable explicit sequence knowledge.

Distorted estimates of implicit and explicit learning in applications of the process-dissociation procedure to the SRT task.

We investigated potential biases affecting the validity of the process-dissociation (PD) procedure when applied to sequence learning. Participants were or were not exposed to a serial reaction time task (SRTT) with two types of pseudo-random materials. Afterwards, participants worked on a free or cued generation task under inclusion and exclusion instructions.