Abstract: The relationship between implicit sequence learning and attention is one of the most ongoing questions in the study of implicit learning. The dual attention-mechanism hypothesis, the suppression hypothesis and the explicit intrusion hypothesis interpreted the relationship differently. All the three accounts have been debated heavily in that each has its supporting evidences under being questioned. In order to combine the three accounts at some extent, we further advance the dynamic-need hypothesis, which assumes that the task of implicit sequence learning has a dynamic need of attention and the more explicit learning in the task the more attention it needs

Key words: implicit learning, sequence learning, attention, the dynamic-need hypothesis