No effect of feedback, level of processing or stimulus presentation protocol on perceptual learning when easy and difficult trials are interleaved

Abstract

The role of feedback during training is a topic of great theoretical importance in perceptual learning. Feedback can be provided externally by the environment or internally by the observer. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of learning with internal versus external feedback, we performed a large multi-level experiment, varying the type of training task (Motion or Form), the level of processing (Local or Global), the presence of feedback (With or Without) and finally the method of stimulus presentation (Adaptive staircase or Method of constant stimuli). 140 participants were randomly assigned to one of ten groups and undertook 3 days of training in one condition only. Detection thresholds were measured daily before and after training with a pre- and post-assessment. A 75% detection threshold was calculated and used to estimate that day’s training levels (65% and 85% accuracy for difficult and easy trials respectively). The group trained with MOCS were presented with predefined randomly interleaved easy and difficult trials ranging from 50% to 95% stimulus intensity. Our findings indicate that improvement was generally robust across training-tasks, processing levels and feedback conditions. This suggests that internal reinforcement is as effective as external feedback in a discrete-noise-paradigm for local and global tasks when easy and difficult trials are interleaved.