We note that in most studies there is learning specificity even when observers already know the relevant location and feature of the stimulus to be trained, and in principle observers could attend to such properties. For example, monocular training on a particular line orientation in one quadrant of the visual field results in local accuracy improvements on that orientation for the trained eye, and no accuracy changes in the other three quadrants, or for the untrained eye, when the relative orientation of the line is orthogonal ( Karni & Sagi, 1991, but see also Schoups & Orban, 1996, who found interocular transfer). Robust learning has generally been thought to require extensive and repeated training ( Frank, Reavis, Tse, & Greenlee, 2014 Karni & Sagi, 1993 Watanabe, Náñez, Koyama, Mukai, Liederman, & Sasaki, 2002 Yotsumoto, Watanabe, & Sasaki, 2008), but recent studies have demonstrated long-lasting performance enhancements with short training periods ( Hussain, Sekuler, & Bennett, 2011 Yashar & Carrasco, 2016 Yashar, Chen, & Carrasco, 2015).Ī main property of VPL is specificity, in which performance improvements are confined to the particular trained retinal location ( Ball & Sekuler, 1982 Berardi & Fiorentini, 1987 Crist, Kapadia, Westheimer, & Gilbert, 1997 Dill & Fahle, 1997 Fahle & Edelman, 1993 Fahle, Edelman, & Poggio, 1995 Jehee, Ling, Swisher, van Bergen, & Tong, 2012 Schoups, Vogels, & Orban, 1995 Shiu & Pashler, 1992 Yang & Maunsell, 2004 Yashar et al., 2015), stimulus feature ( Adab, Popivanov, Vanduffel, & Vogels, 2014 Adini, Sagi, & Tsodyks, 2002 Ahissar & Hochstein, 1997 Batson, Beer, Seitz, & Watanabe, 2011 Berardi & Fiorentini, 1987 Fiorentini & Berardi, 1980 Fiorentini & Berardi, 1981 Jehee et al., 2012 Watanabe, Náñez, & Sasaki, 2001 Yashar & Denison, 2017), or eye ( Batson et al., 2011 Karni & Sagi, 1991). For example, expert radiologists employ efficient search strategies when viewing medical images, such that they are faster and make fewer perceptual errors in discriminating abnormal from healthy tissue compared to novices ( Waite, Grigorian, Alexander, Macknik, Carrasco, Heeger, & Martinez-Conde, 2019). The adult brain is less plastic, but perceptual training can still enable learning and retention of specific skills throughout the lifespan. In early infancy, highly plastic visual cortical areas functionally organize through visual experience to develop basic perceptual skills. VPL is the acquisition of visual skill, operationalized by enhanced sensitivity or discriminability, due to practice or experience with a visual task (for reviews, see Sagi, 2011 Seitz, 2017 Watanabe & Sasaki, 2015). Thus, in addition to improving performance, exogenous attention generalizes perceptual learning across locations and features. Our results reveal that, when there is specificity in a perceptual acuity task, exogenous spatial attention can overcome that specificity and facilitate learning transfer to both untrained locations and features simultaneously with the same training. For the Vernier hyperacuity task, we found evidence of location and feature specificity in the neutral group, and learning transfer in the attention group-similar improvement at trained and untrained locations and features. For the Landolt acuity task, we found evidence of location transfer in both the neutral and attention groups, suggesting weak location specificity of VPL. Importantly, during pre-tests (day 1) and post-tests (day 5), all observers were tested with neutral precues thus, groups differed only in their attentional allocation during training.
We trained observers for 3 days (days 2–4) in a Landolt acuity task ( Experiment 1) or a Vernier hyperacuity task ( Experiment 2), with either exogenous precues (attention group) or neutral precues (neutral group).
Here, we investigated whether exogenous spatial attention can facilitate such transfer in acuity tasks that have been associated with higher specificity. We have previously found that exogenous (involuntary, stimulus-driven) and endogenous (voluntary, goal-driven) spatial attention can facilitate the transfer of VPL across locations in orientation discrimination tasks mediated by contrast sensitivity. A hallmark of VPL is specificity, as improvements are often confined to the trained retinal locations or stimulus features. Visual perceptual learning (VPL) refers to the improvement in performance on a visual task due to practice.