Modulation of motivation and attention in perceptual learning: effects upon learning and cortical representation?

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
S Lissek ◽  
O Höffken ◽  
P Stude ◽  
V Nicolas ◽  
H Dinse ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Learning ◽  
Cortical Representation ◽  
Learning Effects

The role of stimulus comparison in animal perceptual learning: Effects of a distractor placement

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (12) ◽  
pp. 2488-2496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio A Recio ◽  
Adela F Iliescu ◽  
Isabel de Brugada
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Learning ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Time Lapse ◽  
Animal Research ◽  
Learning Effects ◽  
Stimulus Comparison ◽  
Human Research ◽  
Short Time ◽  
Effect Experiment

Research on perceptual learning shows that the way stimuli are presented leads to different outcomes. The intermixed/blocked (I/B) effect is one of these outcomes, and different mechanisms have been proposed to explain it. In human research, it seems that comparison between stimuli is important, and the placement of a distractor between the pre-exposed stimuli interferes with the effect. Results from animal research are usually interpreted in different terms because the type of procedure normally used in animal perceptual learning does not favour comparison. In our experiments, we explore the possibility that a distractor placed between the to-be-discriminated stimuli may interfere with the perceptual learning process in rats. In Experiment 1, two flavoured solutions are presented in an I/B fashion, with a short time lapse between them to favour comparison, showing the typical I/B effect. In Experiment 2, we introduced a distractor in between the solutions, abolishing this effect. Experiment 3 further replicates this by comparing two intermixed groups with or without distractor. The results replicate the findings from human research, suggesting that comparison also plays an important role in animal perceptual learning.

scholarly journals Transfer of perceptual learning effects to untrained stimulus dimensions

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (8) ◽  
pp. 416-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Pavlovskaya ◽  
S. Hochstein
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Learning ◽  
Learning Effects

Countercurrents in Matter and Mind

Perception ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 26 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 177-177
Author(s):  
S Hochstein ◽  
M Ahissar
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Learning ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
External World ◽  
Learning Effects ◽  
Efficient Manner ◽  
Cortical Hierarchy ◽  
Internal Information ◽  
Task Conditions ◽  
Perceptual Systems ◽  
The Brain

An especially efficient manner of transmission of matter or energy, employed by numerous biological systems, is the countercurrent mechanism. Transfer is effected between two closely aligned streaming currents where the currents flow in opposite directions. Final transfer can be 100% rather than the 50% ceiling of concurrent streams. We now report that perceptual systems may employ a similar mechanism. Information derived from the external world by the senses is transferred to the perceptual system in a hierarchy of processing areas. Simultaneously, this information is intermixed with previously stored internal information. The degree of mixture of previously existing information, with new, unprocessed information is titrated along the hierarchy. The brain may tap various points along the countercurrents to obtain the mixtures required for different tasks. Perceptual learning affects first the inner levels of this cortical hierarchy and only later descends to their input levels to achieve better performance with more difficult task conditions. Learning effects discussed at ECVP over the last two decades are reviewed in the light of this cortical scheme. Many seemingly contradictory findings are reconciled when put in the framework of countercurrent streams which respectively process sensory information and guide perceptual learning.

scholarly journals Syllabic patterns in the early vocalizations of Quichua children

2011 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTINA E. GILDERSLEEVE-NEUMANN ◽  
BARBARA L. DAVIS ◽  
PETER F. MACNEILAGE
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Learning ◽  
English Learning ◽  
Learning Effects ◽  
Phonological Acquisition ◽  
Early Appearance ◽  
Ambient Language ◽  
Back Vowel ◽  
Language Environment ◽  
Occurrence Patterns ◽  
Production Effects

ABSTRACTTo understand the interactions between production patterns common to children regardless of language environment and the early appearance of production effects based on perceptual learning from the ambient language requires the study of languages with diverse phonological properties. Few studies have evaluated early phonological acquisition patterns of children in non-Indo-European language environments. In the current study, across- and within-syllable consonant–vowel co-occurrence patterns in babbling were analyzed for a 6-month period for seven Ecuadorean Quichua learning children who were between 9 and 17 months of age at study onset. Their babbling utterances were compared to the babbling of six English-learning children between 9 and 22 months of age. Child patterns for both languages were compared with Quichua and English ambient language patterns. Babbling output was highly similar for the child groups: Quichua and English children's babbling demonstrated similar predicted within-syllable (coronal-front vowel, labial-central vowel, dorsal-back vowel) patterns, and across-syllable manner variegation patterns for consonants. These patterns were observed at significantly greater rates in the child groups than in the respective adult language input patterns, suggesting production system influences common to children across languages rather than ambient language perceptual learning effects during these children's babbling period.

Attention to perceive, to learn and to respond

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Hall ◽  
Gabriel Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Learning ◽  
Learning Effect ◽  
Stimulus Element ◽  
Learning Effects ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Alternative Account ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Stimulus Salience ◽  
Attentional Learning ◽  
The Way

Mackintosh and his collaborators put forward an account of perceptual learning effects based, in part, on learned changes in stimulus salience. In the workshop held to mark Mackintosh’s retirement, and published as a special issue of this journal, Hall discussed Mackintosh’s theory and proposed his own alternative account. We now want to take the story forward in the light of findings and theoretical perspectives that have emerged since then. Specifically, we will argue that neither Mackintosh nor Hall was correct in his account of the principles that govern how changes in salience occur. Both supposed (in different ways) that such changes depend on the way in which the stimulus (or stimulus element) is predicted by another event. In contrast, theories of attentional learning have stressed the notion that changes in the properties of a stimulus might depend on the way in which it predicts its consequences. These theories have been concerned with attention-for-learning (associability). We now consider how the general principle they both employ might be relevant to the other forms of attention (for perception and for performance) that are, we will argue, critical for the perceptual learning effect.

scholarly journals fMRI Reveals a Common Neural Substrate of Illusory and Real Contours in V1 after Perceptual Learning

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 1553-1564 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Maertens ◽  
Stefan Pollmann
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Visual Field ◽  
Perceptual Learning ◽  
Primary Visual Cortex ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Learning Effects ◽  
Illusory Contours ◽  
Perceptual Training ◽  
Induced Changes ◽  
Field Position

Perceptual learning involves the specific and relatively permanent modification of perception following a sensory experience. In psychophysical experiments, the specificity of the learning effects to the trained stimulus attributes (e.g., visual field position or stimulus orientation) is often attributed to assumed neural modifications at an early cortical site within the visual processing hierarchy. We directly investigated a neural correlate of perceptual learning in the primary visual cortex using fMRI. Twenty volunteers practiced a curvature discrimination on Kanizsa-type illusory contours in the MR scanner. Practice-induced changes in the BOLD response to illusory contours were compared between the pretraining and the posttraining block in those areas of the primary visual cortex (V1) that, in the same session, had been identified to represent real contours at corresponding visual field locations. A retinotopically specific BOLD signal increase to illusory contours was observed as a consequence of the training, possibly signaling the formation of a contour representation, which is necessary for performing the curvature discrimination. The effects of perceptual training were maintained over a period of about 10 months, and they were specific to the trained visual field position. The behavioral specificity of the learning effects supports an involvement of V1 in perceptual learning, and not in unspecific attentional effects.

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