training, transfer of

In psychology, the effect of having learned one activity on an individual's execution of other activities.

Positive transfer occurs when a previously acquired skill enhances one's performance of a new one. Negative transfer occurs when the previously acquired skill impairs one's attempt to master the new one.

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▪ learning

Introduction

      influence the learning of one skill has on the learning or performance of another. Will knowledge of English help a person learn German? Are skillful table-tennis (Ping-Pong) players generally good court-tennis players? Can a child who does not know how to add learn to multiply? Such questions represent the problems of transfer of training.

Kinds of transfer

      Basically three kinds of transfer can occur: positive, negative, and zero. The following examples from hypothetical experiments, purposely uncomplicated by distracting detail, illustrate each. Suppose a group of students learn a task, B, in 10 practice sessions. Another group of equivalent students, who previously had learned another task, A, is found to reach the same level of performance on task B in only five practice sessions. Since the average number of practice sessions required to learn B was reduced from 10 to five, transfer of training from task A to task B is said to be positive (10 − 5 = +5). Many successful training aids, such as those that simulate the cockpit of an airplane and that are applied to teach people how to use instruments for flying blind without leaving the ground, produce positive transfer; when students who have preliminary training in such trainers are compared to those who do not, those with preliminary training almost invariably require less practice in achieving the desired level of skill.

      Sometimes the effect of transfer of training is to hamper effectiveness in subsequent activity. If after learning task A a group of people need 15 practice sessions to learn task B whereas only 10 sessions are required for those without any previous training in task A, then task A is said to lead to negative transfer of training on task B (10 − 15 = −5). Having learned to drive on the right side of the road often is observed to produce negative transfer for the tourist from Japan or continental Europe or North America when he is travelling in Great Britain, where cars are to be driven on the left-hand side of the road.

      The degree to which transfer of training occurs between two different tasks is often minimal and may be so small that it is called zero transfer. If learning task B with or without previous training in task A requires 10 practice sessions, then the amount of transfer from one task to the other is said to be zero (10 − 10 = 0). Learning to knit Argyle socks is apt to produce zero transfer of training in learning to sing an operatic aria in French.

      Although in contemporary psychology transfer of training is a distinct topic of investigation with its own experimental designs and procedures for measurement, its implications pervade practically all of psychology, from conditioning to personality development. Ivan P. Pavlov (Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich) discovered that when a dog is conditioned (Pavlovian conditioning) to salivate in response to a sound wave of 1,000 cycles per second, it will also salivate if it is next exposed to a tone of 900 cycles per second, although typically the volume of saliva will be slightly reduced. In this case, transfer of training occurs between two similar auditory stimuli; in general, phenomena of this sort are called stimulus generalization. At the very root of modern theories of personality development is the assumption that what a person learns during his childhood (biological development) will show a pervasive degree of transfer to his adult behaviour. In some cases stimulus generalization mediates this transfer. Some cases of excessive fears may have their origins in unpleasant experiences during early life.

Education and transfer

      The experimental study of transfer of training has historical roots in problems of educational practice (educational psychology). Educators in Western countries at the end of the 19th century widely endorsed the doctrine of formal discipline, contending that psychological abilities, called “mental faculties” by such philosophers as Thomas Aquinas (1225–74), could be strengthened, like muscles, through exercise. By learning geometry, one was expected to improve his ability to reason; studying Latin was held to “strengthen” the so-called faculty of memory, and so on. Although what contemporary educators have demoted from the doctrine to the theory of formal discipline once seemed reasonable to many, experimental tests have refuted it. When the reasoning abilities of groups of mathematics students in secondary schools were compared with those of other equally talented students who had not had the same mathematical training, no differences in general logical effectiveness were observed between the groups.

      An alternative theory of identical elements was proposed in which it was postulated that transfer between activities would take place only if they shared common elements or features. Thus it was predicted that one's training in addition would transfer to his ability to learn how to multiply. It was reasoned that both tasks share identical features, multiplication basically requiring a series of successive additions, and that both tasks demand the individual's concentration.

      But the identical-elements formulation soon came under attack when experimental results suggested that one's understanding of general principles (generalization), rather than the presence of identical task elements, has substantial effects on transfer of training. In one notable experiment, two groups of boys practiced throwing darts at a target placed under about a foot of water. Only one group, however, was instructed about the principle that water bends (refracts) light. According to this principle, the apparent position of the target should vary with the depth of the water. When the target depth was reduced to four inches, the group that had been taught the general principle of refraction adjusted rapidly to the change and exhibited substantial positive transfer; the other boys showed comparative difficulty in learning to hit the target at the shallower level.

      These formulations (formal discipline, identical elements, and general principles), when considered carefully, might be recognized as points of view rather than as rigorously specified theories that could lead to unequivocal predictions of the results of new experiments in transfer of training. For example, failure to demonstrate positive transfer between mathematical training and general reasoning ability could be attributed to ineffective teaching of mathematics; in such case, the results need not be interpreted as refuting the theory of formal discipline. If the then-traditional manner of teaching mathematics could be changed to emphasize logical thinking (rather than routinized application of formulas), it was argued that perhaps mathematical training could improve reasoning ability in general. Some theorists also suggested that the positive transfer observed to result when boys learned the principle of refraction was consistent with the hypothesis of identical elements; these theorists observed that a general principle may be considered an element common to many tasks. According to this line of reasoning, the group of boys who exhibited positive transfer with the shift to a new target depth shared the principle of refraction as an element in common with the previous task, along with those of aiming and throwing. By contrast, the youngsters who performed without the benefit of knowing about refraction were held to have gained positive transfer from throwing but to have suffered negative transfer as a result of aiming incorrectly.

Experimental (experimental psychology) analysis of transfer of training

      The indeterminate character of the broad theoretical formulations offered to account for transfer of training and the often unsuccessful ways in which they were applied to the practical problems of classroom teaching led some psychologists to retreat to the laboratory in the hope of identifying more clear-cut, fundamental processes in transfer of training. As a result, a number of different transfer-of-training phenomena were discovered, several of which may be reviewed as follows.

Stimulus and response similarity

      The method of paired-associate learning, in which a person is asked to learn to associate one syllable or word with another (e.g., complete–hot, safe–green, wild–soft), encouraged the investigation of the influence of stimulus and response similarity on transfer of learning. Typically these pairs of verbal items are presented to the laboratory subject so that the first, or stimulus, member (e.g., complete) is exposed alone, followed after a short interval by the second, or response, member (e.g., hot). The subject's task is to respond to the stimulus term before the response term appears, as when an English-speaking student in learning French is supposed to respond to le livre with the book.

      When two successive lists of paired associates are learned in which the stimulus elements are the same but the response terms are changed (e.g., complete–hot in the first list and complete–new in the second), negative transfer typically results. Apparently, in learning the second list the subject tends to respond to the stimulus term (e.g., complete) with the previously learned correct response term (e.g., hot), the result being interference with new learning to produce negative transfer. If he were learning the second list without having learned the first, the subject would not be so handicapped.

      Another question concerns the sort of transfer that results when response terms are different and stimulus elements are similar but not identical; for example, entire is similar to complete. After one has learned complete–hot, the experimental evidence is that his ability to learn entire–new becomes definitely more difficult. Both entire and complete seem to have a tendency to evoke the response hot and to be incompatible with subsequently learning the association of entire with new. The principle that appears to operate in such situations is that the greater the similarity in stimulus elements, the greater the degree of negative transfer.

      The influence of response (rather than stimulus) similarity on transfer of training is more complex; in paired-associate learning, the subject needs to learn the response term of each pair (response learning) and then to remember that it is linked with its appropriate stimulus partner (associative learning). When response terms are relatively difficult to learn (as in the case of unfamiliar or foreign words), the subject tends to profit considerably from learning the first list. But when response terms already have been learned (or are easy to learn), little if any positive transfer is likely to occur. The degree of transfer between lists that contain similar response terms depends both on how similar they are and on their level of difficulty; increasing the similarity between response terms is most likely to increase positive transfer when the response terms are relatively difficult to learn.

      Although attempts have been made to formulate an all-embracing theory that would account for the effects of similarity among paired associates on transfer of training, a major obstacle that has prevented fully satisfying results is that the degree of positive or negative transfer is typically a product of many interacting influences beyond those of stimulus and response similarity. For example, the amount of training that the subject receives also has significant effects on transfer. When initial training is given on a simulated task (e.g., learning to operate a set of dummy controls in preparation for a second task of acquiring a complicated skill, such as flying an airplane), negative transfer effects frequently appear during the initial stages of learning the second task and then give way with further training to generally positive transfer effects.

      Another stumbling block in developing theoretical explanations has to do with the meaning of the central concept of similarity. In such experiments as those in which the salivary reflex is conditioned to different auditory stimuli, similarity is measured in terms of physical stimulus properties (e.g., pitch or loudness); in other studies, as in paired-associate learning, similarity typically is expressed in terms of verbal meaning. In neither case has a universally adopted method yet been devised to measure similarity in a reliable and precise way; perhaps none can be, simply since there are so many different aspects of physical and linguistic or semantic similarity. Despite these difficulties, efforts to analyze transfer experimentally in terms of the properties of stimulus and response events have been productive in identifying conditions that can be varied to alter the direction and the degree of transfer of training.

Retroactive and proactive inhibition

      Closely related to stimulus and response similarity are phenomena called retroactive inhibition and proactive inhibition; these demonstrate how forgetting seems to result from interfering activities.

      In a study of retroactive inhibition, both the experimental and control groups of people learn task A (for example, a list of adjectives) and are tested for their ability to recall A after a specified time interval. The groups differ in what they are asked to do during the interval; the experimental group learns a similar task B (say, another list of words), while the control group is assigned some unrelated activity (for example, naming a series of coloured chips) designed to prevent them from rehearsing task A. The results of numerous studies of retroactive inhibition show that the experimental subjects typically are poorest in recalling information from task A. The interpolated activity, particularly a comparable one such as memorizing a second list of adjectives, apparently interferes with one's ability to recall words from the first list. Habit competition, or what is sometimes called interference, between the items of the original and the interpolated word lists at the time of recall is considered to be one of the major sources of the negative transfer exhibited in retroactive inhibition.

      Experimental designs for demonstrating proactive inhibition differ from those used for showing retroactive inhibition in that the experimental group learns task B before, instead of after, task A. Whereas B was a task that was interpolated between the learning and the recall of task A in the retroactive inhibition study, B is a task that precedes the learning of task A in the proactive inhibition study. To evaluate the effects on the experimental subjects of their having learned B prior to A, the control people are instructed to relax during the time the experimental group is learning B. Typically an experimental subject's ability to recall from task A is inferior to that of a control person, the degree of inferiority depending in part on how similar the two tasks are; the greater the similarity, the poorer the recall tends to be. Although proactive inhibition, so called to indicate that it acts forward from the first-learned task to the second, produces appreciably less forgetting than does retroactive inhibition, they both support the theory that interference can produce forgetting (see memory: Theories of forgetting (memory)).

Stimulus predifferentiation

      Educational films can be considered as everyday examples of stimulus predifferentiation, in which the individual gets preliminary information to be used in subsequent learning. The student who sees a film (audiovisual education) describing the various parts of a microscope is likely to be better prepared to learn the requisite skills when confronted with the instrument itself. In laboratory studies of stimulus predifferentiation, the subject is given experience with a particular stimulus situation ahead of time; later he is asked to learn new responses in the same situation. In one illustrative study, subjects first practiced labelling four different lights and then later were asked to learn to press selectively one of four switches, each connected to one light. The rate at which they learned the appropriate pressing reactions was related to how well they had learned to label the lights.

      The results of a large number of experiments covering a variety of stimulus predifferentiation techniques suggest that when a learner has an opportunity to become generally acquainted with an environment, he retains some information about its different components that prepares him for learning to make new responses to them. Various explanations have been offered to account for this facilitation; some investigators suggest that the process of labelling enhances the distinctiveness of environmental stimuli for the labeller; others hold that perceptual acquaintance can more sharply differentiate an environment into its component parts for the perceiver or that it may encourage appropriate responses of observing or attending. Nevertheless, no single process has been identified as fundamental in stimulus predifferentiation. Perhaps a number of these processes operate in different combinations from one stimulus-predifferentiation transfer experiment to another, each process representing a different method by which a learner can become familiar with the details of his environment.

Transposition

      Another phenomenon that has received considerable attention in theories of transfer of training is called transposition. An initial report of transposition came from a study in which chickens were trained by rewards to respond to the darker of two gray squares. After this discrimination task was learned (animal learning), the chickens were shown the originally rewarded gray square along with one that was still darker. They seemed to prefer the darkest gray to the square that had been previously rewarded. This finding was interpreted to support the hypothesis that the birds had initially learned to respond to a relationship (what a human being would call the concept “darker”) and that this response to a relationship had been transposed or transferred to the new discrimination. This relational interpretation later was challenged by theorists who offered a formulation to show, on the basis of principles of stimulus generalization, how a response to a relational stimulus could be explained by assuming that organisms do indeed respond to the absolute properties of the stimuli. Both explanations were found to be too simple for the variety of findings obtained with transposition studies. As a result, the interest of many investigators shifted away from demonstrating the relative merits of absolute versus relational interpretations to identifying conditions that seem to influence transposition behaviour. Within this context, newer, more sophisticated formulations have been proposed that consider both the absolute and relational characteristics of the stimuli in transposition studies.

Learning to learn

      When people are asked to learn successive lists of words, their performance tends to improve from one task to another so that much less time is commonly required to learn, say, the tenth list than was needed for mastering the first list. This improvement suggests that information beyond the specific content of lists of words is also learned. It would seem as if the subjects are learning how to learn; that is, they seem to be acquiring learning sets, or expectancies, that transfer from list to list to produce continually improving performance.

      Some of the most intensive work on learning sets has been carried out with monkeys (monkey) that were learning how to solve several hundred discrimination problems in succession. In each problem, the monkey learned which one of two objects (for example, a bottle cap and a cookie cutter) consistently contained a piece of food. Although the solution of each successive problem required the animals to discriminate between two previously unfamiliar objects, performance tended to improve on successive tasks; the monkeys made increasing numbers of correct choices on the second trial of each problem as the process continued. Manifestly there was no cue to indicate the correct choice on the first trial of any specific problem. If the animal responded correctly on the first trial, then on the second trial it would only have to choose the same object to be correct thereafter; if the monkey made an error on the first trial, then the other object would inexorably be the one that should be chosen next. During their efforts to solve the first few problems the monkeys were correct approximately half the time on the second attempt to solve each problem. This success increased to an average of 80 percent correct after each animal had solved 100 problems, to 88 percent after 200 correct solutions, and eventually to 95 percent after 300. Thus, after a long series of separate tasks, all of the same type, the monkey's first response to the next problem usually provided sufficient information for the animal to make the correct choice.

      Since each of the successive discrimination problems was different, what actually was being transferred from problem to problem? In these discrimination problems, the monkeys seemed to have several items of information to learn in addition to which one of the two objects contained the rewarding bit of food. The animals apparently had to learn to pay attention to that part of their environment where the objects were placed. To make the correct choice, it would seem that a monkey would have to learn to abandon any preference it might exhibit for objects on either the left or the right; indeed, the animals usually did show such preferences. (The correct object was shifted from side to side in a random sequence to control for these preferences.) Ostensibly, the monkeys also had to learn that one object consistently contained food while the other was always empty. Although these learning sets by themselves would not serve to identify the correct object in each new discrimination problem, it seems likely that they could help the animal locate the reward very rapidly by eliminating initially unprofitable responses.

Reversal learning

      In reversal learning, the individual first learns to make a discrimination, such as choosing a black object in a black–white discrimination problem, and then is supposed to learn to reverse his choice—i.e., to choose the white object. Such reversals tend to be difficult for most learners since there are negative transfer effects; e.g., the individual tends to persist in responding to the black object that was originally correct. Eventually, however, one's tendency to make the originally learned selection typically becomes weaker, and he makes the competing response (e.g., to white) more frequently until a point is reached where it is almost consistently evoked. Reversal learning can be accomplished very rapidly when a laboratory animal, such as a monkey, is presented with a series of reversal-learning problems in which the same sequence of shifts is repeated (as when black is initially correct, then white, then black, then white, and so on). After extended reversal training, some animals are able to make the next reversal in the sequence in one trial. They behave as if they have mastered the abstract concept of alternation or of regular sequence.

      The speed with which representatives of a given species of animal, including human (human evolution) beings, can be taught to make a reversal of this kind seems to be related to the place biologists assign them in a hierarchy of evolutionary development. On first being exposed to a reversal-learning problem, normally competent adult humans who can use language are likely to achieve a solution with great rapidity. Monkeys can learn to perform equally well after a relatively longer series of reversal-learning tasks; but isopods such as pill bugs or sow bugs, small relatives of crabs and shrimp, have such primitive brains that they seem to be unable to improve their performance at all during a series of reversal-learning tasks.

Developmental processes and transfer

      The manner in which a problem (concept formation) is learned seems to have an effect on what is transferred. This conclusion is supported by experiments in which comparisons are made of the relative ease with which children of different ages execute reversal and so-called extradimensional shifts. In performing both kinds of shift, experimental subjects learn two successive discriminations between two pairs of objects that vary simultaneously in two aspects or dimensions—e.g., white triangle versus black square, and black triangle versus white square. In training subjects initially, discrimination of only one dimension (for example, black–white) is made relevant, with the child's selection of one of the cues (for example, white) being rewarded, while the other (black) is incorrect. After they have learned this, the children are shifted to the second discrimination. In the case of a reversal shift, the same stimulus dimension (black–white) remains relevant, but the child is now to learn to reverse his initial choice; black choices are now rewarded, and white selections become incorrect. For an extradimensional shift, the initially irrelevant dimension (square–triangle) is given relevance by rewarding selection of one of its alternatives and by failing to reward choices for the other.

      The relative ease with which human beings learn to make extradimensional and reversal shifts is related to how old they are. Reversal shifts are relatively difficult for young children to learn and are relatively easy for adults to master. As people gain maturity, the relative ease with which they execute a reversal shift tends to increase in comparison with their ability to achieve an extradimensional shift.

      Explanations for these developmental changes seem to be found in the manner in which the individual solves a discrimination problem. Very young children and laboratory animals tend to learn simple habits when faced with a discrimination problem for the first time; for example, they are most likely to learn simply to approach black objects and to avoid white. Reversal shift is often extremely difficult for them, and negative transfer effects are substantial. Subjects who primarily learn simple habits are faced with the task of eliminating one habit (e.g., to choose black) that has been rewarded and then of developing another habit (e.g., to choose white) that previously has not been rewarded.

      Human adults, on the other hand, generally find a reversal shift relatively easy; they do not behave as if they simply associate their choices to the relevant stimuli (e.g., white and black) but instead appear symbolically (or conceptually) to react to both of them in terms of their common characteristic (brightness). A similar kind of symbolic or logical response is appropriate in solving reversal-shift problems; since the relevant dimension remains the same, this kind of shift tends to be easier to make than is one involving extradimensional shift, which requires the individual to switch to a new symbolic response (e.g., from brightness to size). In short, when they respond concretely, learners favour their potentials for achieving extradimensional transfer; those who tend to respond symbolically enhance the probability for reversal transfer.

      Whatever the validity to be found in theoretical explanations of this sort, review of how transfer phenomena may be influenced suggests that no single principle or simple theory thus far put forward accounts for all of the observed data. Instead, the evidence is that several interacting processes underlie transfer of training and that their relative influence depends both on the nature of the tasks between which transfer takes place as well as on the characteristics of the learning organism. If one seeks to control the degree of transfer, as one does in educational settings, it seems useful to analyze transfer behaviour in terms of a number of component processes—e.g., stimulus and response similarity, stimulus predifferentiation and response learning, and the symbolic abilities of the learner.

The physiology of transfer of training

      Although available evidence for a physiological basis of transfer of training is limited, some impressive data already are recorded. Some central (brain and spinal-cord) mechanisms seem to control transfer of training. A long-established transfer phenomenon is cross education, in which there is positive transfer of a skill learned with one part of the body to another, untrained part. For example, a person who learns to throw a dart with his preferred hand exhibits positive transfer to his non-preferred hand. Since different muscles are involved in the equivalent action of opposite limbs, positive transfer resulting from cross education cannot be attributed simply to common muscular movements; instead it would seem that cross education depends on central processes that control the actions of both limbs.

      Among highly evolved animals, transfer of training between limbs from opposite sides of the body evidently is mediated through a massive system of neural fibres, known as the corpus callosum, that connects the two hemispheres of the brain. One of the many ways in which the validity of this principle may be demonstrated is first to train blindfolded cats (feline) to discriminate with one paw between two different pedals (by feeling raised horizontal lines on one pedal and by detecting raised vertical lines on the other). Since each eye sends some of its nerve impulses to both hemispheres of the cat's brain while each paw only directs impulses to the hemisphere of the brain on the same side of the animal's body, this procedure feeds the sensory information to just one hemisphere. After learning to make the discrimination with one paw (e.g., reward being given only for the pedal with the horizontal pattern), a cat that is confronted with making the same discrimination with the other front paw, which has its connections with the ostensibly “untrained” brain hemisphere, will nevertheless exhibit positive transfer. Indeed, even when the corpus callosum is surgically severed immediately after learning (to “disconnect” the two hemispheres), positive transfer will take place from one front paw to the other; manifestly, transfer of training takes place between connected hemispheres while the animal is learning. If the cat's corpus callosum is severed before it initially learns to discriminate the two pedals, however, no transfer occurs between the animal's limbs; the untrained paw fails to exhibit any benefit from what has been learned with the other paw. In other words, by severing the cat's corpus callosum, the surgeon splits the brain into two independently functioning units. The same kinds of behaviour are observable among other split-brain animals, including chimpanzees and people.

      The physiological foundations of transfer of training are not limited merely to the anatomical considerations of the central nervous system. To better understand how physiological processes mediate transfer of training means also to be able to specify more fully the anatomic, electrical, and chemical basis of learning in general, a goal that remains incompletely achieved. Many physiologists and psychologists hold that the search for the neurophysiological foundations of learning can be pursued most profitably by measuring physical and chemical changes that influence the transmission of nerve impulses. It has long been established that chemical changes are part of the process of neural transmission; and it is widely agreed that, in some way, biochemical activities also are responsible for all forms of learning, including transfer of training.

      One popular theory in the 1960s was that learning and remembering depend on changes in the molecular structure of such chemicals as ribonucleic acid (RNA) and peptides that are incorporated in the cells of the body, including nerve cells. Some researchers have theorized that memory traces are physically coded within the molecules of cells.

      Reports of experiments have been published offering evidence that skills have been transferred from one individual to another by injecting materials taken from the brains (or even other parts of the body) of trained animals into the bodies of untrained organisms (e.g., flatworms, rats, hamsters). These reports have encouraged many to hope that someday one might be able to learn a foreign language, for example, by simply taking a pill instead of through the usual time-consuming practice. Subsequent efforts to repeat such experiments sometimes have given positive results but more often have yielded no evidence of chemical transfer of training from one individual to the next. In view of such inconsistent findings, this question became a matter of considerable controversy. Many investigators seemed inclined to dismiss the notion that organisms can learn by swallowing chemicals or through injection as another of those oversimplified interpretations that continue to be offered in efforts to account for complex psychophysiological phenomena.

Howard H. Kendler

Additional Reading

Introductory psychology texts that discuss transfer of training as an experimental phenomenon and its implications for a wide variety of behaviour include Howard H. Kendler, Basic Psychology, 3rd ed. (1974); and Howard H. Kendler and Tracy S. Kendler, Basic Psychology: Brief Edition (1971). Undergraduate texts that review theories and experimental evidence concerning transfer of training include James Deese and Stewart H. Hulse, The Psychology of Learning, 5th ed. (1980); and John F. Hall, The Psychology of Learning (1966). Henry C. Ellis, The Transfer of Learning (1965), presents a general analysis of transfer and includes reprints of important journal articles on the topic. Hayne W. Reese, The Perception of Stimulus Relations: Discrimination Learning and Transposition (1968); and Donald A. Riley, Discrimination Learning (1968), are accounts of how transfer of training influences discrimination learning. More recent discussion of research on transfer of training may be found in Steven M. Cormier and Joseph D. Hagman (eds.), Transfer of Learning: Contemporary Research and Applications (1987).Howard H. Kendler Ed.

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