TRANSFER OF TRAINING TO A MOTOR TASK IN RELATION TO STIMULUS SIMILARITY.
Abstract
An experiment was carried out to investigate the relation between similarity of stimuli of two motor tasks and the amount of transfer between them. Each of five matched experimental groups, consisting of 25 young Navy men each, was trained on a task requiring two different responses; one to a light of given color and the other to any of six other colors. Following training, each of the groups proceeded to the learning of a different second task. The final tasks differed from the training task in that one of the six non-standard lights of the training task was employed as the standard color in the final task, and what was the standard color during training became one of six non-standard colors of the final task. The degree of resemblance between training and final tasks could be expressed in terms of the similarity between the standard stimuli of the two tasks. The series of colored stimulus lights was selected so that the stimuli were distributed at equal intervals along a psychophysical scale of color similarity in j.n.d. units. Thus, the difference between successive colors in the series was constant and the series may be taken as representing six equal similarity steps over approximately one half of the visible spectrum. The final tasks chosen for investigation represented 0, 1, 2, 4, and 6 similarity-step differences from the common training task. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 08, 1949
- Accession Number
- AD0641587
Entities
People
- Katherine E. Baker
- Robert M. Gagne
Organizations
- Connecticut College