title: Predicting favorable and unfavorable consequences of perceptual learning: worsening and the peak shift.
abstract: Discrimination learning can cause improved and worsened ability to perceive differences. This subsequently affects how stimuli are associated with meanings and behaviors. Here, human listeners were trained with frequency-modulated (FM) tonal sweeps (500-1000 Hz) in a paradigm where one FM rate (8.29 octaves per second) required a 'Target' response, while a rate either slower (5.76 octaves per second) or faster (11.94 octaves per second) required a 'Non-Target' response. Training led to a shift in 'Target' responding along the FM rate dimension away from the 'Target' in a direction opposite the trained 'Non-Target'. This peak shift was paralleled by an asymmetry in acuity along the FM rate dimension in an untrained ABX task (a.k.a. match-to-sample). Performance improved relative to pre-training on trials where the 'Target' was contrasted with stimuli nearer the trained 'Non-Target'. Performance worsened on trials containing stimuli displaced along the FM dimension further from the trained 'Non-Target'. A connectionist model of perceptual learning containing non-associative representational modification and associative-based task-specific reweighting was able to simulate behavior. Simulations generated novel testable predictions regarding peak shift and worsening as a result of discrimination learning. Data have theoretical and practical consequences for predicting trends in the generalization of learned behaviors and modifiable perceptual acuities.
authors.affiliation: U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, Bldg. 441, Area B, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, OH, USA. matt.g.wisniewski@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Matthew G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Wisniewski
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005793:Generalization, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D014163:Transfer, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Connectionism; Discrimination learning; Negative generalization; Self-organizing map (SOM); Transfer