Table 1.

Main strategies entered into the analysis. Note that each strategy in the first experimental group has its equivalent in the second. AB^∗ corresponds to AA^∗ (primacy rules) and ^∗AB corresponds to ^∗BB (recency rules); +AB+ and ^∗BA^∗ correspond to +AA^∗ and ^∗BB+ (interior rules); TS (transition similarity) is the inverse of NTS (non-transition similarity). The last column includes the corresponding regular expression in formal language theory terms (Jäger and Rogers, 2012, Sipser, 2006); the symbol # denotes the absence of a possible regular expression for that strategy.

Group	Rule name	Conditions for stimulus acceptance (“accept stimulus which…”)	Regular expression
(AB)n	startAB	starts with the substring AB	AB∗
endAB	ends with the substring AB	∗AB
interiorAB	contains AB at any non-edge position	+AB+
interiorBA	contains BA anywhere	∗BA∗
TS	resembles the alternation in the training stimuli (by maximizing the number of transitions between A and B tiles, and vice versa)	#
(AB)n	consists of any non-zero number of AB pairs	(AB)+
AnBn	startAA	starts with the substring AA	AA∗
endBB	ends with the substring BB	∗BB
interiorAA	contains AA at any position (except the beginning)	+AA∗
interiorBB	contains BB at any position (except the end)	∗BB+
NTS	resembles the visual homogeneity in the training stimuli (by minimizing the number of transitions between A and B tiles, and vice versa)	#
AnBn	contains an equal number of A and B, and all A tiles precede all B tiles	#
Both	RR	is on the right	#
LL	is on the left	#