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  • Review Article
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Advances in visual perceptual learning and plasticity

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 11, pages 53–60 (2010)Cite this article

This article has been updated

Key Points

  • Visual perceptual learning (VPL) is defined as performance enhancement on a visual task as a result of visual experience and has been regarded as a manifestation of brain plasticity.

  • Studies of VPL mechanisms should distinguish the process that leads to learning from the changes resulting from learning.

  • It was formerly believed that conscious effort, such as deliberately paying attention, is necessary for the occurrence of VPL; however, this has recently been challenged by studies indicating that the involvement of more implicit processing, such as reinforcement-driven processing and consolidation processing, is crucial for VPL to occur.

  • VPL occurs as a result of the participant either focusing attention on a given task and/or relevant visual feature or through mere exposure to a feature that is irrelevant to a given task. These are known as task-relevant learning and task-irrelevant learning, respectively.

  • Recent results suggest that attention enhances signals from task-relevant features and suppresses signals from task-irrelevant features, resulting in task-relevant learning. Conversely, reinforcement signals driven by rewards may enhance signals from task-relevant and task-irrelevant features.

  • Some results suggest that the visual cortex changes in association with VPL, with or without the influence of top-down processing from higher cortical levels. However, other findings indicate that at least some types of VPL are associated with changes in the areas of the cortex responsible for decision making or in the connectivity between the visual and decision-making cortices, without changes in the visual cortex itself.

  • Whether changes associated with perceptual learning mainly occur within or beyond the visual cortex may depend on conditions including the task, the relevant feature and the irrelevant feature. The brain probably changes the targeted region in order to achieve the greatest improvement possible on the perceptual task.

Abstract

Visual perceptual learning (VPL) is defined as a long-term improvement in performance on a visual task. In recent years, the idea that conscious effort is necessary for VPL to occur has been challenged by research suggesting the involvement of more implicit processing mechanisms, such as reinforcement-driven processing and consolidation. In addition, we have learnt much about the neural substrates of VPL and it has become evident that changes in visual areas and regions beyond the visual cortex can take place during VPL.

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Figure 1: Processing during VPL training.
Figure 2: Typical tasks used in VPL studies.
Figure 3: Neural correlates of VPL.

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Change history

  • 07 December 2009

    This Review article has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions.

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Acknowledgements

We thank G. Deangelis, B. Dosher, Z.-L. Lu and K. Shibata for valuable comments on an early draft of the paper and N. Ito for technical assistance. This study is supported by grants from the Sleep Research Society Foundation, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, ERATO Shimojo Implicit Brain Project (Japan Science Technology), the National Centre for Research Resources (P41RR14075) the Mind Institute and the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biological Imaging to Y.S. and by grants from the US National Institutes of Health (R01 EY015980-04A2, R01 EY019466, R01 AG031941, R21 EY018925, R21 EY017737) and the National Science Foundation (BCS-0549,036) to T.W.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, 02129, Massachusetts, USA

    Yuka Sasaki

  2. Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    Yuka Sasaki

  3. ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, Seika-cho, Kyoto, 619-0288, Japan

    Yuka Sasaki & Takeo Watanabe

  4. Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Arizona State University, Phoenix, 85069, Arizona, USA

    Jose E. Nanez

  5. Department of Psychology and Center for Neuroscience, Boston University, Boston, 02215, Massachusetts, USA

    Takeo Watanabe

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  1. Yuka Sasaki
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  2. Jose E. Nanez
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  3. Takeo Watanabe
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Takeo Watanabe.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary information S1 (figure)

Conceptual diagram of classifications of sleep (PDF 117 kb)

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Glossary

Implicit processing

Processing that occurs without a subject's awareness.

Vernier acuity

The ability to detect an offset from collinearity in a pair or triad of abutting lines or dots.

Gabor patches

The two-dimensional image formed by multiplying a sine wave and a Gaussian function. Gabor patches are widely used in vision research because they have a well-defined spatial frequency, orientation and location.

Blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal

The signal based on the relative concentration of contrast deoxygenated and oxygenated blood measured by functional MRI. The BOLD signal is thought to reflect some significant aspects of neural activity.

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep

The period of sleep characterized by a relatively low-voltage, mixed-frequency electroencephalogram in conjunction with episodic rapid eye movements and low-amplitude electromyogram. Breathing and heart rates are irregular during REM sleep, which is also when vivid dreaming is thought to occur.

Non-REM (NREM) sleep

The period of sleep that is not classified as REM sleep. Slow-wave sleep (SWS) is a component of deeper NREM sleep in humans. However, SWS is synonymous with NREM sleep in animals.

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Sasaki, Y., Nanez, J. & Watanabe, T. Advances in visual perceptual learning and plasticity. Nat Rev Neurosci 11, 53–60 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2737

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