Abstract: People are capable of acquiring unconscious knowledge of structural regularities from the environment. This form of learning is known as implicit learning. In the implicit learning literature, there remains controversy over what contents can be implicitly learned, i.e., chunks or abstract rules. Implicit learning of nonlocal dependencies provides a new perspective for the controversy. From the domains of artificial language learning, music learning and perceptual motor sequences learning, this paper reviews the recent literature on implicit learning of nonlocal dependencies, discusses the limitations of implicit learning, and puts forward some new issues and approaches in terms of the transfer effects, limitations, functional magnetic resonance imaging and artificial neural networks simulations for future studies.

Key words: implicit learning, nonlocal dependencies, abstract rule, prior experience