In this article, we explore the extraction of recursive nested structure in the processing of binary sequences. Our aim was to determine whether humans learn the higher-order regularities of a highly simplified input where only sequential-order information marks the hierarchical structure. To this end, we implemented a sequence generated by the…

Complex sequences are ubiquitous in human mental life, structuring representations within many different cognitive domains--natural language, music, mathematics, and logic, to name a few. However, the representational and computational machinery used to learn abstract grammars and process complex sequences is unknown. Here, we used an artificial…

Sequential action makes up the bulk of human daily activity, and yet much remains unknown about how people learn such actions. In one motor learning paradigm, the serial reaction time (SRT) task, people are taught a consistent sequence of button presses by cueing them with the next target response. However, the SRT task only records keypress…