ABSTRACT
Research about implicit learning, that is, broadly defined, learning that takes place in the absence of intention to learn and in such a way that the acquired knowledge cannot be easily verbalized, was initiated about fifty years ago with the publication, in 1967, of Arthur Reber’s article about artificial grammar learning. Implicit learning, as explored through its different paradigms, remains controversial. Behavioral priming, particularly in social psychology, remains controversial. All these phenomena continue to elicit lively debate in their respective literatures. In the East, however, the development of ideas followed a rather different course, shaped as it was by Soviet ideology. The study of the phenomena of the conscious and the unconscious was nearly impossible during the Soviet era. There was merely a brief period, right after the revolution, when the revolutionary euphoria allowed new ideas and new people to appear and burst onto the scientific scene.
