Modality Differences, Transfer Designs, and Statistics: Comment on a Reply.

Abstract

The vituperative criticism leveled at the 1974 Freides review for its analysis of the inadequacies in the 1972 Clark, Warm, and Schumsky study does not correct the fault of a statistical analysis that fails to take into account a training-transfer design necessarily involving repeated measures on the same subject. The evidence for the fault is presented in detail, and the criticism is rejected. The inadequacy of a poorly formulated sentence in the review is, however, acknowledged.

Perceptual processing strategies in the cross-modal transfer of form discrimination: A developmental study.

“…Asymmetry of cross-modal transfer, if found consistently in one direction only, has important theoretical implications. In particular, Lobb's (1970) findings have been cited by Freides (1974Freides ( , 1977 to support a model of cross-modal transfer that predicts superior transfer from vision to touch for complex spatial tasks. The significance attached to Lobb's results is considerable and understandable, as they were obtained under well-controlled, rigorous experimental conditions.…”

“…For example, in some cross-modal studies the procedures used have unwittingly handicapped touch relative to vision (Rose, Blank, & Bridger, 1972), or alternatively, enhanced visual performance by providing more discrimination cues during visual presentation (Diewert & Stelmach, 1977). Moreover, judging from current dispute over what constitutes an adequate test of cross-modal transfer (Freides, 1977;Warm, Schumsky, & Clark, 1977), basic methodological questions still seek satisfactory answers.…”