Systematic Psychophysical Investigation of Visual Learning.

描述(由申请者提供)：这是一份竞标续期R01基金的建议书，题为“视觉学习的系统心理物理研究”。视觉感知学习(VPL)被认为是一种很有前途的工具，可以帮助阐明视觉和大脑可塑性的重要方面。我们的长期目标是描绘出支配VPL的一般规则，并更好地了解视觉和大脑可塑性的机制。在目前的支持期间，我们在阐明VPL下感知和行为变化的特征方面取得了巨大的成功，通常是通过研究视觉训练如何改变训练特征值或周围的表现来实现的。然而，关于VPL的机制也出现了新的严重争议。其中一个争议是关于视觉和大脑信息处理阶段的视觉和大脑信息处理的定位。另一个问题是如何在训练过程中形成具有位置特异性或迁移的VPL。我们将进行系统的心理物理研究，目的是建立两个独立但又相互关联的模型，每个模型都涉及在哪里或如何开发VPL来解决每一个争议，从而将这两个模型整合到VPL的统一模型中。在目标1中，我们将试图通过开发一个两阶段模型来解决关于VPL基因座的争议，该模型既可以解释支持低水平变化的发现，也可以解释支持较高水平阶段的发现，而不否认低水平或较高水平模型的证据。通过对不同类型的任务、刺激和程序进行不同的实验，我们将从心理物理上检验这个两阶段模型以及现有模型的有效性。在目标2中，我们将尝试解决第二个争议。双重训练降低了位置特异性的程度，暴露了现有模型在解释位置特异性方面的严重局限性。到目前为止，还没有理论模型 提出了一个可以清楚地解释位置特异性是如何通过单一训练发生的，以及位置特异性是如何被双重训练削弱/消除的。基于我们最近发现的VPL消除再激活和我们有影响力的强化模型，我们将建立强化再激活模型，该模型假设双训练后位置特异性的消除是由于未能重新巩固位置特异性学习TAT被强化信号重新激活。在一系列的实验中，我们将检验该钢筋再激活模型和其他已有模型的有效性。在这两个目标中，实验结果也将被用来进一步改进拟议的模型，以最合适地解释VPL是在哪里以及如何开发的。对这些目标的审查将有助于实现我们的长期目标，即澄清管理VPL的一般职能规则。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a proposal for competitive renewal of the currently funded R01 grant entitled "Systematic psychophysical investigation of visual learning". Visual perceptual learning (VPL) is regarded as a promising tool that can help clarify important aspects of visual and brain plasticity. Our long-term goal is to delineate general rules that govern VPL, and to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms of visual and brain plasticity. During the currently supported period, we have attained great success in clarifying the characteristics of perceptual and behavioral changes under VPL, often by examining how performance at or around a trained feature value is changed as a result of visual training. However, new serious controversies about the mechanisms of VPL have emerged. One controversy concerns the locus of VPL, or the visual and brain information processing stage that is changed in association with VPL. The other concerns how VPL with location specificity or transfer is developed during training. We will conduct systematic psychophysical research with the aim of building two separate but related models, each of which concerns where or how VPL is developed to resolve each of these controversies, so that these two models will be integrated to a unified model of VPL. In Aim 1, we will attempt to resolve the controversy about the locus of VPL by developing a two-stage model that can account for both the findings that support low-level changes and those that support higher-level stages, without denying either evidence for the low-level or higher-level models. By conducting a variety of experiments with different types of tasks, stimuli and procedures, we will psychophysically test the validity of this two-stage model as well as existing models. In Aim 2, we will attempt to resolve the second controversy. The reduction of the degree of location specificity by double training has exposed serious limitations in how existing models explain location specificity. Thus far, no theoretical model has been proposed that can clearly explain how location specificity occurs by single training, as well as how location specificity is weakened/eliminated by double training. Based on our recent finding of elimination of VPL followed by reactivation and our influential reinforcement model, we will build the reinforcement reactivation model that assumes that the elimination of location specificity after double training is due to a failure to reconsolidate location specific learning tat was reactivated by reinforcement signals. In a series of experiments, we will test the validity of this reinforcement reactivation model and other existing models. In both aims, results of experiments will also be used to further refine the proposed models to most suitably account for where and how VPL is developed. Examinations of these aims will help to achieve our long-term goal of clarifying general functional rules that govern VPL.