Work

Limited transfer of long-term motion perceptual learning with double training

Year: 2015

Type: article

Abstract: A significant recent development in visual perceptual learning research is the double training technique. With this technique, Xiao, Zhang, Wang, Klein, Levi, and Yu (2008) have found complete transfer in tasks that had previously been shown to be stimulus specific. The significance of this finding is that this technique has since been successful in all tasks tested, including motion direction discrimination. Here, we investigated whether or not this technique could generalize to longer-term learning, using the method of constant stimuli. Our task was learning to discriminate motion directions of random dots. The second leg of training was contrast discrimination along a new average direction of the same moving dots. We found that, although exposure of moving dots along a new direction facilitated motion direction discrimination, this partial transfer was far from complete. We conclude that, although perceptual learning is transferrable under certain conditions, stimulus specificity also remains an inherent characteristic of motion perceptual learning.

Source: Journal of Vision

DOI: 10.1167/15.10.1

Authors: Ju Liang, Yifeng Zhou, Manfred Fahle, Zili Liu

Institutions: University of Science and Technology of China, University of Bremen, University of California, Los Angeles

Language: English

Topic: Visual perception and processing mechanisms

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,850

Funder: National Natural Science Foundation of China