Journal
VISION RESEARCH
Volume 50, Issue 4, Pages 368-374Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2009.08.024
Keywords
Perceptual learning; Orientation discrimination; Location specificity
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Funding
- NEI NIH HHS [R01 EY001728, R01 EY020976] Funding Source: Medline
- PHS HHS [R01-01728, R01-04776] Funding Source: Medline
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Perceptual learning of orientation discrimination is reported to be precisely specific to the trained retinal location. This specificity is often taken as evidence for localizing the site of orientation learning to retinotopic cortical areas V1/V2. However, the extant physiological evidence for training improved orientation turning in V1/V2 neurons is controversial and weak. Here we demonstrate substantial transfer of orientation learning across retinal locations, either from the fovea to the periphery or amongst peripheral locations. Most importantly, we found that a brief pretest at a peripheral location before foveal training enabled complete transfer of learning, so that additional practice at that peripheral location resulted in no further improvement. These results indicate that location specificity in orientation learning depends on the particular training procedures, and is not necessarily a genuine property of orientation learning. We suggest that non-retinotopic high brain areas may be responsible for orientation learning, consistent with the extant neurophysiological data. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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