Role of Tactual-Kinesthetic Feedback in Transfer of Perceptual Learning for Rats with Pigmented Irises

Abstract

Hooded rats were pre-exposed to circles and triangles in an otherwise visually sparse environment where opportunity to manipulate the forms was varied for the early experience groups. Although early experience with these stimuli enhanced their later discriminability over that shown by control animals who received no early experience, opportunity to manipulate the forms produced no additional gain in perceptual learning relative to Ss not allowed to manipulate the pre-exposed shapes. The findings restrict the generality of the tactual-kinesthetic feedback hypothesis.