Perceptual learning: psychophysical thresholds and electrical brain topography

Skrandies, Wolfgang; Jedynak, A.; Fahle, Manfred

doi:10.1016/s0167-8760(00)00177-x

Cited by 31 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 40 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…An early sum-potential study found significant changes in the sum-potential distribution over the occipital cortex after the training of a vernier discrimination task, starting at a latency as short as 50 ms (Fahle & Skrandies 1994). Similar changes were obtained in a number of other training conditions in several laboratories (Skrandies et al 2001;Ding et al 2003;Casco et al 2004). Imaging results, on the other hand, are not yet unequivocal.…”

supporting

confidence: 56%

Perceptual learning and sensomotor flexibility: cortical plasticity under attentional control?

Fahle

2008

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent research reveals long-lasting cortical plasticity of early sensory cortices even in adults. Sensory signals could be modified under top-down control if necessary quite early in order to optimize their signal-to-noise ratio, leading to 'low level' or 'early' perceptual learning (PL). For easy tasks, such elaborate top-down influences are usually not required, and learning is restricted to late selection of the appropriate signals on higher cortical levels, which seems easier and faster to achieve. But to reach the absolute limits of sensory performance, PL seems to optimize the entire chain of sensory processing. Hence, improvement for these extreme perceptual abilities is quite specific for a number of stimulus parameters, such as the position in the visual field and sometimes even the trained eye, reflecting the specificity of receptive fields in early sensory cortices. Early PL may be just one example-even if a very extensive one-of the mechanisms of neuronal plasticity and sensomotor flexibility that are constantly updating our sensomotor representations as a result of experience. As an illustration, this review contains some new experimental results on PL and sensory flexibility in the context of adaptation to multifocal intraocular lenses.

show abstract

supporting

confidence: 56%

Perceptual learning and sensomotor flexibility: cortical plasticity under attentional control?

Fahle

2008

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, little is known about how learning shapes interactions between these circuits and mediates perceptual improvements in the discrimination of global forms (Scott et al, 2006(Scott et al, , 2008Rossion et al, 2007). Previous EEG studies have focused on the temporal processes that mediate visual feature (e.g., orientation, motion) (Fahle and Skrandies, 1994;Skrandies et al, 2001;Ding et al, 2003;Shoji and Skrandies, 2006;Song et al, 2007;Pourtois et al, 2008;Bao et al, 2010) rather than global form learning. Here, we seek to identify the learning-dependent mechanisms that support distinct processes for visual form learning in clutter, ranging from the extraction of stimulus features from noise to the categorization of global forms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning Acts on Distinct Processes for Visual Form Perception in the Human Brain

Mayhew

Li²,

Kourtzi³

2012

J. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Learning is known to facilitate our ability to detect targets in clutter and optimize brain processes for successful visual recognition. Previous brain-imaging studies have focused on identifying spatial patterns (i.e., brain areas) that change with learning, implicating occipitotemporal and frontoparietal areas. However, little is known about the interactions within this network that mediate learningdependent improvement in complex perceptual tasks (i.e., discrimination of visual forms in clutter). Here we take advantage of the complementary high spatial and temporal resolution of simultaneous EEG-fMRI to identify the learning-dependent changes in spatiotemporal brain patterns that mediate enhanced behavioral sensitivity in the discrimination of global forms after training. We measured the observers' choices when discriminating between concentric and radial patterns presented in noise before and after training. Similarly, we measured the choices of a pattern classifier when predicting each stimulus from EEG-fMRI signals. By comparing the performance of human observers and classifiers, we demonstrated that learning alters sensitivity to visual forms and EEG-fMRI activation patterns related to distinct visual recognition processes. In particular, behavioral improvement after training was associated with changes in (1) early processes involved in the integration of global forms in higher occipitotemporal and parietal areas, and (2) later processes related to categorical judgments in frontal circuits. Thus, our findings provide evidence that learning acts on distinct visual recognition processes and shapes feedforward interactions across brain areas to support performance in complex perceptual tasks.

show abstract

“…As known, ERP can be recorded non-invasively with high temporal resolution (in order of milliseconds) while human subjects perform perceptual tasks, and ERP recording is a very useful method for exploring the neural correlates of perceptual learning in humans. However, so far, there are only a few ERP studies on visual perceptual learning in humans such as those by Skrandies et al (6,7) and Doniger et al (8,9). They reported larger amplitudes of negativities induced by visual perceptual learning.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Neural correlates of visual perceptual learning in humans indexed by event‐related potentials

Ding

Song

Fan

et al. 2003

Neuroscience Res Communica

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

SUMMARYThe current work investigated the neural correlates of visual perceptual learning by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) from human adults. Subjects were trained with a discrimination task of arrow orientation in three consecutive training sessions within 2 hours. While reaction times (RTs) were shortened gradually across training sessions, the amplitudes of negativities between 125 155 ms (Nl) and between 290-340 ms (N2) decreased mainly over the central and parietal areas respectively. However, a broadly distributed P3 component increased along with more practice. In addition, the decrease in Nl and increase in P3 preceded the decrease in N2. The implications of these results to the neural mechanisms subserving perceptual learning are discussed.

show abstract

Perceptual learning: psychophysical thresholds and electrical brain topography

Cited by 31 publications

References 40 publications

Perceptual learning and sensomotor flexibility: cortical plasticity under attentional control?

Perceptual learning and sensomotor flexibility: cortical plasticity under attentional control?

Learning Acts on Distinct Processes for Visual Form Perception in the Human Brain

Neural correlates of visual perceptual learning in humans indexed by event‐related potentials

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About