ASA 127th Meeting M.I.T. 1994 June 6-10

4pPP32. Transfer of learning in a sequence discrimination task.

Kathy Barsz

Dept. of Psychol., SUNY, Geneseo, NY 14454

Listeners discriminated sequences differing in tonal order. These sequences had a moderate frequency range between the tones and were presented in blocks which included either vary narrow range sequences or very wide range sequences. The standard sequence was either fixed throughout a block or varied randomly on each trial. Thus the moderate range sequences were discriminated under four different conditions: In the context of narrow range sequences with a fixed standard, in the context of wide range sequences with a fixed standard, in the context of narrow range sequences with a random standard, and in the context of wide range sequences with a random standard. The performance of listeners who practiced with one of the conditions was compared to the performance of listeners who practiced in all of the conditions. It was found that listeners exposed to all the conditions benefited more from practice, and were more likely to be affected by whether the moderate range sequences were presented with narrow or wide range sequences. Performance was generally better when the standard sequence was fixed throughout a block of trials, but this effect was much larger for the listeners who heard all the conditions. It is argued that, while hearing easier conditions, listeners develop strategies which can aid them in more difficult conditions.