Transfer of predifferentiation training in simple and multiple shape discrimination.

A Time For Telling

“…Discovering the distinctions may have provided the students with sufficiently precise knowledge that they could subsequently understand the chapter's description of the patterns they had overlooked. Previous research on perceptual learning, for example, has shown that, if people discern distinctions within a domain, these distinctions can facilitate subsequent learning (Arnoult, 1953;Gagn6 & Baker, 1950;E. J. Gibson, 1940).…”

“…Our hypothesis is that, rather than doing more telling, a powerful way to create a time for telling comes from theories of perceptual learning that emphasize differentiation (e.g., Arnoult, 1953;Bransford, Franks, Vye, & Sherwood, 1989;Garner, 1974;E. J. Gibson, 1969;J.…”

Language is not Just for Talking

“…Miller and Dollard saw object names as a kind of motor response, and so hypothesized that associating undifferentiated stimuli with different names increases the differences between the stimuli and facilitates placing them into separate categories. This hypothesis was tested with mixed results because the relevant experiments failed to control for stimulus familiarity (e.g., Arnoult, 1953; Battig, 1956; Rossman & Goss, 1951), and it was unclear whether increased discriminability or facilitated categorization arose from the learned associations between stimuli and labels or merely from additional experience with the stimuli (Gibson & Gibson, 1955; Robinson, 1955).…”

Transfer in perceptual learning following stimulus predifferentiation.

“…Studies of transfer of predifferentiation training (e.g., Goss & Greenfeld, 1958) have frequently indicated that learning verbal labels to stimuli facilitates performance in some subsequent task when that task requires making new differential responses to the same stimuli. In contrast, experiments which have employed more direct tests of improvement in recognition or discrimination following practice in labeling have generally yielded negative results (Arnoult, 1953;Campbell & Freeman, 1955;Ellis, Bessemer, Devine, & Trafton, 1962;Robinson, 1955), in that no facilitation in these tasks has occurred as a result of distinctiveness labeling practice per se.…”