Bottom-up and top-down influences at untrained conditions determine perceptual learning specificity and transfer

نویسندگان

  • Ying-Zi Xiong
  • Jun-Yun Zhang
  • Cong Yu
چکیده

Perceptual learning is often orientation and location specific, which may indicate neuronal plasticity in early visual areas. However, learning specificity diminishes with additional exposure of the transfer orientation or location via irrelevant tasks, suggesting that the specificity is related to untrained conditions, likely because neurons representing untrained conditions are neither bottom-up stimulated nor top-down attended during training. To demonstrate these top-down and bottom-up contributions, we applied a "continuous flash suppression" technique to suppress the exposure stimulus into sub-consciousness, and with additional manipulations to achieve pure bottom-up stimulation or top-down attention with the transfer condition. We found that either bottom-up or top-down influences enabled significant transfer of orientation and Vernier discrimination learning. These results suggest that learning specificity may result from under-activations of untrained visual neurons due to insufficient bottom-up stimulation and/or top-down attention during training. High-level perceptual learning thus may not functionally connect to these neurons for learning transfer.

برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

منابع مشابه

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Uc San Diego Title: Understanding the Role of Top-down Attentional Modulation in the Acquisition and Transfer of Perceptual Learning / Understanding the Role of Top-down Attentional Modulation in the Acquisition and Transfer of Perceptual Learning

Abstract: Perceptual learning has classically been described as an improvement in sensitivity to a trained stimulus in a particular location in the visual field. However, the specificity of traditional perceptual learning makes it difficult to ascertain its relevance to real-world instances of perceptual expertise. Although more recent work has investigated the ability of perceptual learning to...

متن کامل

ERP P1-N1 changes associated with Vernier perceptual learning and its location specificity and transfer.

Our recent studies demonstrate that perceptual learning can transfer completely to untrained retinal locations upon proper training procedures, which suggests perceptual learning being a high-level learning process occurring beyond the retinotopic visual areas. We propose that whether learning is location specific depends on the functional connections between high-level learning and the sensory...

متن کامل

Event-Related Potentials of Bottom-Up and Top-Down Processing of Emotional Faces

Introduction: Emotional stimulus is processed automatically in a bottom-up way or can be processed voluntarily in a top-down way. Imaging studies have indicated that bottom-up and top-down processing are mediated through different neural systems. However, temporal differentiation of top-down versus bottom-up processing of facial emotional expressions has remained to be clarified. The present st...

متن کامل

ERP C1 is top-down modulated by orientation perceptual learning.

The brain site of perceptual learning has been frequently debated. Recent psychophysical evidence for complete learning transfer to new retinal locations and orientations/directions suggests that perceptual learning may mainly occur in high-level brain areas. Contradictorily, ERP C1 changes associated with perceptual learning are cited as evidence for training-induced plasticity in the early vi...

متن کامل

A Feedback Model of Perceptual Learning and Categorisation

Top-down, feedback, influences are known to have significant effects on visual information processing. Such influences are also likely to affect perceptual learning. This article employs a computational model of the cortical region interactions underlying visual perception to investigate possible influences of top-down information on learning. The results suggest that feedback could bias the wa...

متن کامل

ذخیره در منابع من


  با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید

برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

عنوان ژورنال:

دوره 5  شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2016