Intra- and intermodal discrimination transfer in auditory and visual discrimination training

The purpose of this study was to investigate intra- and intermodal discrimination generalization-transfer in auditory and visual "same-different" discrimination training. Two subjects were trained in an auditory discrimination task, two in a visual discrimination task and two received no training. Discrimination performance was assessed on 12 visual and 12 auditory stimulus conditions at pre- and posttraining intervals for all subjects. The 4 subjects receiving training also were probed for performance at three intervals during the training. Results indicate that subjects trained to a task in one sensory modality demonstrate improved discrimination performance on untrained stimulus discrimination within (intra-) and between (inter-) sensory modalities, whereas, untrained subjects tended to show less improved performance.