Perceptual learning of Gabor orientation identification in visual periphery: complete inter-ocular transfer of learning mechanisms

Hierarchical Bayesian perceptual template modeling of mechanisms of spatial attention in central and peripheral cuing

The external noise paradigm and perceptual template model (PTM) have successfully been applied to characterize observer properties and mechanisms of observer state changes (e.g. attention and perceptual learning) in several research domains, focusing on individual level analysis. In this study, we developed a new hierarchical Bayesian perceptual template model (HBPTM) to model the trial-by-trial data from all individuals and conditions in a published spatial cuing study within a single structure and compared its performance to that of a Bayesian Inference Procedure (BIP), which separately infers the posterior distributions of the model parameters for each individual subject without the hierarchical structure. The HBPTM allowed us to compute the joint posterior distribution of the hyperparameters and parameters at the population, observer, and experiment levels and make statistical inferences at all these levels. In addition, we ran a large simulation study that varied the number of observers and number of trials in each condition and demonstrated the advantage of the HBPTM over the BIP across all the simulated datasets. Although it is developed in the context of spatial attention, the HBPTM and its extensions can be used to model data from the external noise paradigm in other domains and enable predictions of human performance at both the population and individual levels.

Current directions in visual perceptual learning

The visual expertise of adult humans is jointly determined by evolution, visual development, and visual perceptual learning. Perceptual learning refers to performance improvements in perceptual tasks after practice or training in the task. It occurs in almost all visual tasks, ranging from simple feature detection to complex scene analysis. In this Review, we focus on key behavioral aspects of visual perceptual learning. We begin by describing visual perceptual learning tasks and manipulations that influence the magnitude of learning, and then discuss specificity of learning. Next, we present theories and computational models of learning and specificity. We then review applications of visual perceptual learning in visual rehabilitation. Finally, we summarize the general principles of visual perceptual learning, discuss the tension between plasticity and stability, and conclude with new research directions.

Human perceptual learning is delayed by the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor partial agonist D-cycloserine

BACKGROUND

The optimisation of learning has long been a focus of scientific research, particularly in relation to improving psychological treatment and recovery of brain function. Previously, partial N-methyl-D-aspartate agonists have been shown to augment reward learning, procedural learning and psychological therapy, but many studies also report no impact of these compounds on the same processes.

AIMS

Here we investigate whether administration of an N-methyl-D-aspartate partial agonist (D-cycloserine) modulates a previously unexplored process - tactile perceptual learning. Further, we use a longitudinal design to investigate whether N-methyl-D-aspartate-related learning effects vary with time, thereby providing a potentially simple explanation for apparent mixed effects in previous research.

METHODS

Thirty-four volunteers were randomised to receive one dose of 250 mg D-cycloserine or placebo 2 h before tactile sensitivity training. Tactile perception was measured using psychophysical methods before and after training, and 24/48 h later.

RESULTS

The placebo group showed immediate within-day tactile perception gains, but no further improvements between-days. In contrast, tactile perception remained at baseline on day one in the D-cycloserine group (no within-day learning), but showed significant overnight gains on day two. Both groups were equivalent in tactile perception by the final testing - indicating N-methyl-D-aspartate effects changed the timing, but not the overall amount of tactile learning.

CONCLUSIONS

In sum, we provide first evidence for modulation of perceptual learning by administration of a partial N-methyl-D-aspartate agonist. Resolving how the effects of such compounds become apparent over time will assist the optimisation of testing schedules, and may help resolve discrepancies across the learning and cognition domains.

Second-order visual sensitivity in the aging population

Most visual and cognitive functions are affected by aging over the lifespan. In this study, our aim was to investigate the loss in sensitivity to different classes of second-order stimuli-a class of stimuli supposed to be mainly processed in extrastriate cortex-in the aging population. These stimuli will then allow one to identify specific cortical deficit independently of visibility losses in upstream parts of the visual pathway. For this purpose, we measured the sensitivity to first-order stimuli and second-order stimuli: orientation-modulated, motion-modulated or contrast-modulated as a function of spatial frequency in 50 aged participants. Overall, we observed a sensitivity loss for all classes of stimuli, but this loss differentially affects the three classes of second-order stimuli tested. It involves all modulation spatial frequencies in the case of motion modulation, but just high modulation spatial frequencies in the case of contrast- and orientation modulations. These observations imply that aging selectively affects the sensitivity to second-order stimuli depending on their type. Since there is evidence that these different second-order stimuli are processed in different regions of extrastriate cortex, this result may suggest that some visual cortical areas are more susceptible to aging effects than others.

"Approximate number system" training: A perceptual learning approach

Recent research suggests that humans perceive quantity using a non-symbolic "number sense." This sense is then thought to provide a foundation for understanding symbolic numbers in formal education. Given this link, there has been interest in the extent to which the approximate number system (ANS) can be improved via dedicated training, as this could provide a route to improving performance in symbolic mathematics. However, current evidence regarding the trainability of the ANS comes largely from studies that have used short training durations, leaving open the question of whether improvements occur over a longer time span. To address this limitation, we utilized a perceptual learning approach to investigate the extent to which long-term (8,000+ trials) training modifies the ANS. Consistent with the general methodological approach common in the domain of perceptual learning (where learning specificity is commonly observed), we also examined whether ANS training generalizes to: (a) untrained locations in the visual field; (b) an enumeration task; (c) a higher-level ratio comparison task; and (d) arithmetic ability. In contrast to previous short-term training studies showing that ANS learning quickly asymptotes, our long-term training approach revealed that performance continued to improve even after thousands of trials. We further found that the training generalized to untrained visual locations. At post-test there was non-significant evidence for generalization to a low-level enumeration task, but not to our high-level tasks, including ratio comparison, multi-object tracking, and arithmetic performance. These results demonstrate the potential utility of long-term psychophysical training, but also suggest that ANS training alone (even long-duration training) may be insufficient to modify higher-level math skills.

Perceptual Learning for Rehabilitation in Traumatic Optic Neuropathy

Traumatic optic neuropathy is a cause of sudden irreversible visual loss due to optic nerve damage following trauma. Reports of improvement have been noted after observation alone, treatment with corticosteroids, and surgical decompression. However, final visual acuity may not be predictable, with individual patients having little improvement in visual function despite therapy. Perceptual learning improves visual functions by improving the neural processing so as to allow image perception at low signal-to-noise ratios. The case report describes the beneficial effect of perceptual learning in traumatic optic neuropathy, the first to describe the use of perceptual learning in an optic neuropathy. A larger case-controlled study of the effect of perceptual learning in optic neuropathies is required to substantiate the beneficial effect and elaborate the scale of improvement that may be possible with this form of therapy.

Can human amblyopia be treated in adulthood?

Amblyopia is a common visual disorder that results in a spatial acuity deficit in the affected eye. Orthodox treatment is to occlude the unaffected eye for lengthy periods, largely determined by the severity of the visual deficit at diagnosis. Although this treatment is not without its problems (poor compliance, potential to reduce binocular function, etc) it is effective in many children with moderate to severe amblyopia. Diagnosis and initiation of treatment early in life are thought to be critical to the success of this form of therapy. Occlusion is rarely undertaken in older children (more than 10 years old) as the visual benefits are considered to be marginal. Therefore, in subjects where occlusion is not effective or those missed by mass screening programs, there is no alternative therapy available later in life. More recently, burgeoning evidence has begun to reveal previously unrecognized levels of residual neural plasticity in the adult brain and scientists have developed new genetic, pharmacological, and behavioral interventions to activate these latent mechanisms in order to harness their potential for visual recovery. Prominent amongst these is the concept of perceptual learning--the fact that repeatedly practicing a challenging visual task leads to substantial and enduring improvements in visual performance over time. In the normal visual system the improvements are highly specific to the attributes of the trained stimulus. However, in the amblyopic visual system, learned improvements have been shown to generalize to novel tasks. In this paper we ask whether amblyopic deficits can be reduced in adulthood and explore the pattern of transfer of learned improvements. We also show that developing training protocols that target the deficit in stereo acuity allows the recovery of normal stereo function even in adulthood. This information will help guide further development of learning-based interventions in this clinical group.

Peripheral vision and pattern recognition: a review

We summarize the various strands of research on peripheral vision and relate them to theories of form perception. After a historical overview, we describe quantifications of the cortical magnification hypothesis, including an extension of Schwartz's cortical mapping function. The merits of this concept are considered across a wide range of psychophysical tasks, followed by a discussion of its limitations and the need for non-spatial scaling. We also review the eccentricity dependence of other low-level functions including reaction time, temporal resolution, and spatial summation, as well as perimetric methods. A central topic is then the recognition of characters in peripheral vision, both at low and high levels of contrast, and the impact of surrounding contours known as crowding. We demonstrate how Bouma's law, specifying the critical distance for the onset of crowding, can be stated in terms of the retinocortical mapping. The recognition of more complex stimuli, like textures, faces, and scenes, reveals a substantial impact of mid-level vision and cognitive factors. We further consider eccentricity-dependent limitations of learning, both at the level of perceptual learning and pattern category learning. Generic limitations of extrafoveal vision are observed for the latter in categorization tasks involving multiple stimulus classes. Finally, models of peripheral form vision are discussed. We report that peripheral vision is limited with regard to pattern categorization by a distinctly lower representational complexity and processing speed. Taken together, the limitations of cognitive processing in peripheral vision appear to be as significant as those imposed on low-level functions and by way of crowding.

The pattern of learned visual improvements in adult amblyopia

PURPOSE

Although amblyopia is diagnosed in terms of a monocular letter acuity loss, individuals typically present with deficits on a wide range of spatial tasks. Many of these deficits can be collapsed along two basic visual dimensions (visual acuity and contrast sensitivity) that together account for most of the variability in performance of the amblyopic visual system. In this study, this space was exploited, to target the main deficits and fully characterize the pattern of learned visual improvements in adult amblyopic subjects.

METHODS

Twenty-six amblyopic subjects (mean age, 39 ±12 years) were trained on one of four tasks, categorized as either visual acuity (letter or grating acuity) or contrast sensitivity (letter or grating contrast) tasks. Performance was measured on all tasks before and after training, to quantify learning along each dimension and generalization to the other dimension. Performance in 35 visually normal subjects (mean, age 24 ± 5 years) was used to establish normal variation in visual performance along each dimension, against which the learned improvements in amblyopic subjects was compared.

RESULTS

Training on the contrast sensitivity tasks produced substantial within-task learning and generalization to measures of visual acuity. The learned improvements in performance after training on the letter acuity task were also substantial, but did not generalize to contrast sensitivity.

CONCLUSIONS

Mapping the pattern of learning onto the known deficit space for amblyopia enabled the identification of tasks and stimulus configurations that optimized learning, guiding further development of learning-based interventions in this clinical group.

Visual perceptual learning

Perceptual learning refers to the phenomenon that practice or training in perceptual tasks often substantially improves perceptual performance. Often exhibiting stimulus or task specificities, perceptual learning differs from learning in the cognitive or motor domains. Research on perceptual learning reveals important plasticity in adult perceptual systems, and as well as the limitations in the information processing of the human observer. In this article, we review the behavioral results, mechanisms, physiological basis, computational models, and applications of visual perceptual learning.

Ideal observer analysis of crowding and the reduction of crowding through learning

Crowding is a prominent phenomenon in peripheral vision where nearby objects impede one's ability to identify a target of interest. The precise mechanism of crowding is not known. We used ideal observer analysis and a noise-masking paradigm to identify the functional mechanism of crowding. We tested letter identification in the periphery with and without flanking letters and found that crowding increases equivalent input noise and decreases sampling efficiency. Crowding effectively causes the signal from the target to be noisier and at the same time reduces the visual system's ability to make use of a noisy signal. After practicing identification of flanked letters without noise in the periphery for 6 days, subjects' performance for identifying flanked letters improved (reduction of crowding). Across subjects, the improvement was attributable to either a decrease in crowding-induced equivalent input noise or an increase in sampling efficiency, but seldom both. This pattern of results is consistent with a simple model whereby learning reduces crowding by adjusting the spatial extent of a perceptual window used to gather relevant input features. Following learning, subjects with inappropriately large windows reduced their window sizes; while subjects with inappropriately small windows increased their window sizes. The improvement in equivalent input noise and sampling efficiency persists for at least 6 months.

Modeling mechanisms of perceptual learning with augmented Hebbian re-weighting

Using the external noise plus training paradigm, we have consistently found that two independent mechanisms, stimulus enhancement and external noise exclusion, support perceptual learning in a range of tasks. Here, we show that re-weighting of stable early sensory representations through Hebbian learning (Petrov et al., 2005, 2006) can generate performance patterns that parallel a large range of empirical data: (1) perceptual learning reduced contrast thresholds at all levels of external noise in peripheral orientation identification (Dosher & Lu, 1998, 1999), (2) training with low noise exemplars transferred to performance in high noise, while training with exemplars embedded in high external noise transferred little to performance in low noise (Dosher & Lu, 2005), and (3) pre-training in high external noise only reduced subsequent learning in high external noise, whereas pre-training in zero external noise left very little additional learning in all the external noise conditions (Lu et al., 2006). In the augmented Hebbian re-weighting model (AHRM), perceptual learning strengthens or maintains the connections between the most closely tuned visual channels and a learned categorization structure, while it prunes or reduces inputs from task-irrelevant channels. Reducing the weights on irrelevant channels reduces the contributions of external noise and additive internal noise. Manifestation of stimulus enhancement or external noise exclusion depends on the initial state of internal noise and connection weights in the beginning of a learning task. Both mechanisms reflect re-weighting of stable early sensory representations.

MECHANISMS OF PERCEPTUAL LEARNING

What is learned in perceptual learning? How does perceptual learning change the perceptual system? We investigate these questions using a systems analysis of the perceptual system during the course of perceptual learning using psychophysical methods and models of the observer. Effects of perceptual learning on an observer's performance are characterized by external noise tests within the framework of noisy observer models. We find evidence that two independent mechanisms, external noise exclusion and stimulus enhancement support perceptual learning across a range of tasks. We suggest that both mechanisms may reflect re-weighting of stable early sensory representations.