Perceptual learning

Abstract

Perceptual learning, which is the improvement in perceptual performance due to practice, has been studied by psychologists for over a hundred years. Studies over the last two decades have shown that perceptual learning effects in the visual system are highly specific for a variety of properties of the training stimulus, including its location. A similar degree of specificity characterizes the auditory system. In the tactile system, learning effects are task-specific but transfer readily outside the trained location in many tasks. Selective attention may play an important role in shaping the specificity of perceptual learning, but its precise role in relation to other task requirements remains unclear. While the neural basis of these behavioural observations is far from being understood, perceptual learning effects appear to depend on plasticity of neuronal populations within sensory areas of the cerebral cortex.