![]() ![]() Here, we propose and confirm that, notwithstanding learning specificity of and among the basic skills, such benefits can be attained. Therefore, though nearly all basic perceptual skills can improve with training, whether training these skills can benefit real-life perceptual challenges such as speech recognition in noise has rarely been examined. As different perceptual tasks and their situations of application typically involve different stimuli, across-task transfer of learning appears, if not impossible, at least impractical before stimulus specificity can be resolved. ![]() ![]() Practically, stimulus specificity is the foremost limit of learning utility. Theoretically, stimulus specificity of learning has often been linked to stimulus selectivity of neural responses along the sensory processing hierarchy to shed light onto learning loci 1, 8. To date, such research has primarily focused on stimulus specificity due to both practical and theoretical concerns. The past decade has seen vigorous research and considerable progress on understanding and overcoming learning specificity 5, 6, 7, 8. For example, training word recognition in noise with one word set failed to improve performance with another set 3, and training discrimination of one sound feature did not transfer to discrimination of another feature even with the same sound 4. However, the benefit of perceptual learning is often bound to the training material and task for review, 1, 2. Improving perception in such situations is of great interest in rehabilitative, professional, and educational settings. To extract target information from a competing and intervening background environment, such as speech perception in noise, is a major perceptual challenge that people encounter daily. Thus, notwithstanding task specificity among basic perceptual skills such as discrimination of different sound features, auditory learning appears readily transferable between these skills and their “upstream” tasks utilizing them, providing an effective approach to improving performance in challenging situations or challenged populations. These training benefits did not require similarity of task or stimuli between training and application settings, construing far and wide transfer. While ITD training led to no improvement, both ILD and F 0 training produced learning as well as transfer to speech-in-noise perception when noise differed from speech in the trained feature. Separate groups of normal-hearing listeners were trained on auditory interaural level difference (ILD) discrimination, interaural time difference (ITD) discrimination, and fundamental frequency (F 0) discrimination with non-speech stimuli delivered through headphones. Here we examined whether learning could transfer across tasks, particularly from fine discrimination of sound features to speech perception in noise, one of the most frequently encountered perceptual challenges in real life. Previous studies have focused on promoting transfer across stimuli, such as from one sound frequency to another. A longstanding focus of perceptual learning research is learning specificity, the difficulty for learning to transfer to tasks and situations beyond the training setting. ![]()
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