Critical Periods for Early Experience in Transfer of Perceptual Learning

Abstract

It has generally been found that early experience with stimuli enhances the subsequent discriminability of these forms. To determine if critical periods exist for yielding this early experience effect, albino rats were given either early (20 to 55 days of age) or late (55 to 90 days of age) stimulus experience. A third pre-exposure group received experience with the to-be-discriminated forms from 20 to 90 days of age. Control animals, with no stimulus pre-exposure, were run on the discrimination problem at either 55 or 90 days of age. The basic early experience effect was replicated in that early experience with stimuli facilitated their subsequent discriminability. However, no evidence for critical periods of early experience was obtained.