PERCEPTUAL LEARNING: HUMAN VS. OPTIMAL BAYESIAN

描述（由申请人提供）：人类在大范围视觉任务中的表现随着实践而提高。观察者的准确性增加的一个过程是由于他们使用任务相关（信号）信息的能力的提高。然而，人类神经算法的动力学介导这个学习过程大多是未知的。我们假设，一个新的实验范式可以帮助阐明人类的学习算法，以及通过比较经验测量的人类感知学习性能的最佳贝叶斯学习者和其他次优学习模型，识别学习效率低下的人类来源。为了实现这一目标，我们提出了四个具体的目标：（1）开发一个实验范式，允许研究者比较人类的感知学习的最佳贝叶斯学习者以及其他次优学习模型的学习，为五个特定的任务，涉及学习不同的视觉属性：（2）开发一个电池的诊断测试，以比较人类和模型的学习;（3）从心理学的角度测量人类在五种视觉任务中的视觉表现，并将其与使用诊断测试的模型表现进行比较;（4）使用开发的实验和理论框架来评估人类使用不同模式的学习反馈的效率。这项工作将提高我们对调节成人感知学习动态的人类神经算法的理解，并确定人类学习效率低下的不同来源。最后，提出的实验方案和理论框架将提供一个新的，强大的和灵活的框架，其他研究人员可以用来评估正常的成人和婴儿的知觉学习在各种任务和感觉方式，评估学习在人类视觉障碍和/或学习障碍，并可能与细胞记录和/或脑成像结合使用。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Human performance in a large range of visual tasks improves with practice. One process by which observers' accuracy increases is due to an improvement in their ability to use task-relevant (signal) information. However, the dynamics of the human neural algorithm mediating this learning process is mostly unknown. We hypothesize that a new experimental paradigm can help elucidate the human learning algorithm as well as identify the human sources of learning inefficiency by allowing comparisons of empirically measured human perceptual learning performance to that of an optimal Bayesian learner and other suboptimal learning models. To achieve this goal we propose four Specific Aims: (1) to develop an experimental paradigm that allows the investigator to compare human perceptual learning to the learning of an optimal Bayesian learner as well as other suboptimal learning models for five specific tasks involving learning about different visual attributes; (2) to develop a battery of diagnostic tests to compare human and model learning; (3) to measure human visual performance psychophysically for the five proposed visual tasks and compare them to model performance using the battery of diagnostic tests; and (4) to use the developed experimental and theoretical framework to evaluate the efficiency of the human use of different modes of feedback on learning. The proposed work will improve our understanding of the human neural algorithms mediating the dynamics of adult perceptual learning and identify different sources of inefficiency in human learning. Finally, the experimental protocols and theoretical framework proposed will provide a novel, powerful and flexible framework that other researchers can use to evaluate normal adult and infant perceptual learning in a variety of tasks and sensory modalities, to assess learning in humans with visual disorders and/or learning disabilities, and could potentially be used in conjunction with cell recording and/or brain imaging.