Cross-modal Transfer in Man

Abstract

LITTLE is known about transfer between different sensory systems during learning of complex material. Positive cross-modal transfer implies that learning to discriminate between a pair of stimuli in one modality leads to accelerated discrimination between the same stimuli presented in a second modality. Previous experiments showed no evidence for transfer between visual and tactile¹, or visual and auditory², discrimination habits in monkeys, although one investigation has been reported recently in which transfer between auditory and visual habits was obtained³. In certain conditions, human subjects are able to match geometrically equivalent contours successively presented for visual and tactile comparison⁴. Auditory ‘flutter’ can similarly be matched with visual ‘flicker’ by subjects specifically instructed to equate rates of intermittance of sounds and lights⁵. Such cross-modal comparisons, however, are performed more poorly than intra-modal comparisons. A general theoretical argument against the immediate equivalence of perception in differing sense modalities has beep., presented by Hebb⁶.