Specificity of perceptual learning increases with increased training.
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.
Jeter
Pamela E
PE
Memory, Attention and Perception Laboratory (MAP), Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA. e.gambra@io.cfmac.csis.es
Dosher
Barbara Anne
BA
Liu
Shiau-Hua
SH
Lu
Zhong-Lin
ZL
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*