The transfer of motion direction learning to an opposite direction enabled by double training: A reply to Liang et al. (2015)

Abstract

A recent paper from our lab (Zhang & Yang, 2014) reports that perceptual learning of motion-direction discrimination, which is known to be specific to the trained direction, can transfer significantly, and sometimes completely, to an opposite direction, provided that the observers receive additional exposure of the opposite direction via an irrelevant task. However, in a newly published study, Zili Liu and collaborators claim that they cannot replicate our original double training results using identical procedures (Liang, Fahle, & Liu, 2015). Here we point out that the relevant data in Liang et al. (2015) are actually not very different from those in Zhang and Yang (2014). We thus pool data from both studies to obtain a more precise estimate of the transfer rate, which is over 75% of the learning effect.