Effect of Exposure to a Single Stimulus on Transfer of Perceptual Learning

Abstract

Albino rats reared in a visually sparse environment were pre-exposed to either both, one, or neither of the to-be-discriminated stimuli. Both groups which received early stimulus experience learned the discrimination task in significantly fewer trials than did the nonexposed control group, and the group which received early experience with both stimuli was superior to the group pre-exposed to only one of the to-be-discriminated stimuli. The results imply that greatest facilitation by early experience of later discrimination learning will occur if S is allowed to compare the to-be-discriminated stimuli in his rearing environment.