Perceptual grouping enhances visual plasticity.
Visual perceptual learning, a manifestation of neural plasticity, refers to improvements in performance on a visual task achieved by training. Attention is known to play an important role in perceptual learning, given that the observer's discriminative ability improves only for those stimulus f...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2013-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3534717?pdf=render |
| _version_ | 1831730498325446656 |
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| author | Tommaso Mastropasqua Massimo Turatto |
| author_facet | Tommaso Mastropasqua Massimo Turatto |
| author_sort | Tommaso Mastropasqua |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Visual perceptual learning, a manifestation of neural plasticity, refers to improvements in performance on a visual task achieved by training. Attention is known to play an important role in perceptual learning, given that the observer's discriminative ability improves only for those stimulus feature that are attended. However, the distribution of attention can be severely constrained by perceptual grouping, a process whereby the visual system organizes the initial retinal input into candidate objects. Taken together, these two pieces of evidence suggest the interesting possibility that perceptual grouping might also affect perceptual learning, either directly or via attentional mechanisms. To address this issue, we conducted two experiments. During the training phase, participants attended to the contrast of the task-relevant stimulus (oriented grating), while two similar task-irrelevant stimuli were presented in the adjacent positions. One of the two flanking stimuli was perceptually grouped with the attended stimulus as a consequence of its similar orientation (Experiment 1) or because it was part of the same perceptual object (Experiment 2). A test phase followed the training phase at each location. Compared to the task-irrelevant no-grouping stimulus, orientation discrimination improved at the attended location. Critically, a perceptual learning effect equivalent to the one observed for the attended location also emerged for the task-irrelevant grouping stimulus, indicating that perceptual grouping induced a transfer of learning to the stimulus (or feature) being perceptually grouped with the task-relevant one. Our findings indicate that no voluntary effort to direct attention to the grouping stimulus or feature is necessary to enhance visual plasticity. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-21T09:47:31Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-fcb33f2378c747729d01b74c30d11257 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-21T09:47:31Z |
| publishDate | 2013-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj.art-fcb33f2378c747729d01b74c30d112572022-12-21T19:08:18ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032013-01-0181e5368310.1371/journal.pone.0053683Perceptual grouping enhances visual plasticity.Tommaso MastropasquaMassimo TurattoVisual perceptual learning, a manifestation of neural plasticity, refers to improvements in performance on a visual task achieved by training. Attention is known to play an important role in perceptual learning, given that the observer's discriminative ability improves only for those stimulus feature that are attended. However, the distribution of attention can be severely constrained by perceptual grouping, a process whereby the visual system organizes the initial retinal input into candidate objects. Taken together, these two pieces of evidence suggest the interesting possibility that perceptual grouping might also affect perceptual learning, either directly or via attentional mechanisms. To address this issue, we conducted two experiments. During the training phase, participants attended to the contrast of the task-relevant stimulus (oriented grating), while two similar task-irrelevant stimuli were presented in the adjacent positions. One of the two flanking stimuli was perceptually grouped with the attended stimulus as a consequence of its similar orientation (Experiment 1) or because it was part of the same perceptual object (Experiment 2). A test phase followed the training phase at each location. Compared to the task-irrelevant no-grouping stimulus, orientation discrimination improved at the attended location. Critically, a perceptual learning effect equivalent to the one observed for the attended location also emerged for the task-irrelevant grouping stimulus, indicating that perceptual grouping induced a transfer of learning to the stimulus (or feature) being perceptually grouped with the task-relevant one. Our findings indicate that no voluntary effort to direct attention to the grouping stimulus or feature is necessary to enhance visual plasticity.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3534717?pdf=render |
| spellingShingle | Tommaso Mastropasqua Massimo Turatto Perceptual grouping enhances visual plasticity. PLoS ONE |
| title | Perceptual grouping enhances visual plasticity. |
| title_full | Perceptual grouping enhances visual plasticity. |
| title_fullStr | Perceptual grouping enhances visual plasticity. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Perceptual grouping enhances visual plasticity. |
| title_short | Perceptual grouping enhances visual plasticity. |
| title_sort | perceptual grouping enhances visual plasticity |
| url | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3534717?pdf=render |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT tommasomastropasqua perceptualgroupingenhancesvisualplasticity AT massimoturatto perceptualgroupingenhancesvisualplasticity |