We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Perceptual Learning Reconfigures the Effects of Visual Adaptation.
- Authors
McGovern, David P.; Roach, Neil W.; Webb, Ben S.
- Abstract
Our sensory experiences over a range of different timescales shape our perception of the environment. Two particularly striking short-term forms of plasticity with manifestly different time courses and perceptual consequences are those caused by visual adaptation and perceptual learning. Although conventionally treated as distinct forms of experience-dependent plasticity, their neural mechanisms and perceptual consequences have become increasingly blurred, raising the possibility that they might interact. To optimize our chances of finding a functionally meaningful interaction between learning and adaptation, we examined in humans the perceptual consequences of learning a fine discrimination task while adapting the neurons that carry most information for performing this task. Learning improved discriminative accuracy to a level that ultimately surpassed that in an unadapted state. This remarkable improvement came at a price: adapting directions that before learning had little effect elevated discrimination thresholds afterward. The improvements in discrimina-tive accuracy grew quickly and surpassed unadapted levels within the first few training sessions, whereas the deterioration in discrimi-native accuracy had a different time course. This learned reconfiguration of adapted discriminative accuracy occurred without a concomitant change to the characteristic perceptual biases induced by adaptation, suggesting that the system was still in an adapted state. Our results point to a functionally meaningful push-pull interaction between learning and adaptation in which a gain in sensitivity in one adapted state is balanced by a loss of sensitivity in other adapted states.
- Subjects
PERCEPTUAL learning; VISUAL accommodation; NEUROPLASTICITY; NEURONS; VISUAL discrimination; SENSITIVITY analysis
- Publication
Journal of Neuroscience, 2012, Vol 32, Issue 39, p13621
- ISSN
0270-6474
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1363-12.2012