ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2016
Perceptual learning modifies the functional specializations of visual cortical areas.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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47 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 110 citations in OpenAlex.
- How perceptual learning rewires brain connectivity: lessons from the visual system in a top-down perspective.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2025Pooled it
- Interventions with an Impact on Cognitive Functions in Cerebral Palsy: a Systematic Review.Neuropsychology review · 2023Pooled it
- Transcranial direct current stimulation of the prefrontal and visual cortices diversely affects early and late perceptual learning.Brain and behavior · 2024Trial
- Dichoptic Perceptual Training and Sensory Eye Dominance Plasticity in Normal Vision.Investigative ophthalmology & visual science · 2021Trial
- The Evolving Landscape of Vision Rehabilitation: Current Status and Future Directions.Ophthalmic & physiological optics : the journal of the British College of Ophthalmic Opticians (Optometrists) · 2026Review
- Tennis training enhances blindfolded navigation in children and adults.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Perceptual Learning as a Rehabilitation Approach to Enhance Motion Processing in Maculopathy Patients.Investigative ophthalmology & visual science · 2026Article
- Stroboscopic visual training and the brain: a narrative review of neural mechanisms underlying perceptual-cognitive adaptation in interceptive sports.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Frequency-dependent photic modulation of wakeful consolidation in visual learning.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Conscious awareness determines whether a second learning session disrupts or facilitates earlier learning.Current biology : CB · 2025Article
- Article
- A neural geometry approach comprehensively explains apparently conflicting models of visual perceptual learning.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- An essential role for the latero-medial secondary visual cortex in the acquisition and retention of visual perceptual learning in mice.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Article
- Decision-related activity and movement selection in primate visual cortex.Science advances · 2024Article
- Profiles of visual perceptual learning in feature space.iScience · 2024Article
- Asymmetric stimulus representations bias visual perceptual learning.Journal of vision · 2024Article
- Representational Geometries Reveal Differential Effects of Response Correlations on Population Codes in Neurophysiology and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Article
- Configuration perceptual learning and its relationship with element perceptual learning.Journal of vision · 2022Article
- Perspectives on the Combined Use of Electric Brain Stimulation and Perceptual Learning in Vision.Vision (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Training can improve performance of perceptual tasks. This phenomenon, known as perceptual learning, is strongest for the trained task and stimulus, leading to a widely accepted assumption that the associated neuronal plasticity is restricted to brain circuits that mediate performance of the trained task. Nevertheless, learning does transfer to other tasks and stimuli, implying the presence of more widespread plasticity. Here, we trained human subjects to discriminate the direction of coherent motion stimuli. The behavioral learning effect substantially transferred to noisy motion stimuli. We used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying the transfer of learning. The TMS experiment revealed dissociable, causal contributions of V3A (one of the visual areas in the extrastriate visual cortex) and MT+ (middle temporal/medial superior temporal cortex) to coherent and noisy motion processing. Surprisingly, the contribution of MT+ to noisy motion processing was replaced by V3A after perceptual training. The fMRI experiment complemented and corroborated the TMS finding. Multivariate pattern analysis showed that, before training, among visual cortical areas, coherent and noisy motion was decoded most accurately in V3A and MT+, respectively. After training, both kinds of motion were decoded most accurately in V3A. Our findings demonstrate that the effects of perceptual learning extend far beyond the retuning of specific neural populations for the trained stimuli. Learning could dramatically modify the inherent functional specializations of visual cortical areas and dynamically reweight their contributions to perceptual decisions based on their representational qualities. These neural changes might serve as the neural substrate for the transfer of perceptual learning.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.