title: Specificity of perceptual learning increases with increased training.
abstract: Perceptual learning often shows substantial and long-lasting changes in the ability to classify relevant perceptual stimuli due to practice. Specificity to trained stimuli and tasks is a key characteristic of visual perceptual learning, but little is known about whether specificity depends upon the extent of initial training. Using an orientation discrimination task, we demonstrate that specificity follows after extensive training, while the earliest stages of perceptual learning exhibit substantial transfer to a new location and an opposite orientation. Brief training shows the best performance at the point of transfer. These results for orientation-location transfer have both theoretical and practical implications for understanding perceptual expertise.
authors.affiliation: Memory, Attention and Perception Laboratory (MAP), Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA. e.gambra@io.cfmac.csis.es
authors.forename: Pamela E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Jeter
authors.forename: Barbara Anne
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Dosher
authors.forename: Shiau-Hua
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Zhong-Lin
authors.initials: ZL
authors.lastname: Lu
mesh_terms: D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D012684:Sensory Thresholds / Q000502:physiology; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*