Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA. jeff@banta.psyc.missouri.edu
Abstract:
We tested whether there is long-term learning in the absolute identification of line lengths. Line lengths are unidimensional
stimuli, and there is a common belief that learning of these stimuli quickly reaches a low-level asymptote of about seven
items and progresses no more. We show that this is not the case. Our participants served in a 1.5-h session each day for over
a week. Although they did not achieve perfect performance, they continued to improve day by day throughout the week and eventually
learned to distinguish between 12 and 20 line lengths. These results are in contrast to common characterizations of learning
in absolute identification tasks with unidimensional stimuli. We suggest that this learning reflects improvement in short-term
processing.