Visual training improves perceptual grouping based on basic stimulus features

Abstract

Training on visual tasks improves performance on basic and higher order visual capacities. Such improvement has been linked to changes in connectivity among mediating neurons. We investigated whether training effects occur for perceptual grouping. It was hypothesized that repeated engagement of integration mechanisms would enhance grouping processes. Thirty-six participants underwent 15 sessions of training on a visual discrimination task that required perceptual grouping. Participants viewed 20 × 20 arrays of dots or Gabor patches and indicated whether the array appeared grouped as vertical or horizontal lines. Across trials stimuli became progressively disorganized, contingent upon successful discrimination. Four visual dimensions were examined, in which grouping was based on similarity in luminance, color, orientation, and motion. Psychophysical thresholds of grouping were assessed before and after training. Results indicate that performance in all four dimensions improved with training. Training on a control condition, which paralleled the discrimination task but without a grouping component, produced no improvement. In addition, training on only the luminance and orientation dimensions improved performance for those conditions as well as for grouping by color, on which training had not occurred. However, improvement from partial training did not generalize to motion. Results demonstrate that a training protocol emphasizing stimulus integration enhanced perceptual grouping. Results suggest that neural mechanisms mediating grouping by common luminance and/or orientation contribute to those mediating grouping by color but do not share resources for grouping by common motion. Results are consistent with theories of perceptual learning emphasizing plasticity in early visual processing regions.

The time course of holistic processing is similar for face and non-face Gestalt stimuli

“…Consistent with the familiarity of the letter stimuli driving this rapid perception of the configuration (grouping) of these line fragments, this priming effect emerged later for line fragments in an unfamiliar, inverted (180 degree rotated) letter configuration (Kimchi & Hadad, 2002 ). Lab-based training emphasising stimulus integration has also been shown to facilitate perceptual grouping (Kurylo et al, 2017 ). Therefore, rather than experience and perceptual grouping making independent contributions to supporting holistic processing of stimuli, experience may serve to bolster perceptual grouping within objects of expertise.…”

Visual-Motor Integration in Children With Mild Intellectual Disability: A Meta-Analysis

“…Several studies have demonstrated significant and meaningful fine motor skills training benefits for both children and adults with ID (Azar, McKeen, Carr, Sutherland, & Horton, 2016;Sood, Ahmad, & Chavan, 2017). Visual perception skills can also be trained (Kurylo, Waxman, Kidron, & Silverstein, 2017). Especially effective and promising are computer-based games or programs aimed at improving children's perceptual and attention skills (Boot, Kramer, Simons, Fabiani, & Gratton, 2008;Green, Gorman, & Bavelier, 2016;Gozli, Bavelier, & Pratt, 2014).…”

Progressive attenuation of visual global precedence across healthy aging and Alzheimer’s disease

“…Finally, differences due to age and cognitive impairment in the global/local visual processing, as well as in the processing of other complex visual stimuli that require holistic processing 10.3389/fnagi.2022.893818 such as faces (Tanaka and Gordon, 2011;Kurylo et al, 2017;Gerlach and Poirel, 2018;Gerlach and Starrfelt, 2018), define a developing line of research for their potential to differentiate between healthy older adults and those with AD, including the prodromal stage of the disease that constitutes MCI. In sum, assessing global/local visual processing along with other cognitive processes such as visual memory, executive functions, and language could allow us to establish possible markers of cognitive impairment and possible progression to Alzheimer's dementia.…”