Analyses of Perceptual Learning

我的研究考察了决定我们如何感知视觉模式的因素，以及这些因素受到知觉学习的影响。知觉学习是指我们的发现、辨别和识别模式的能力随着练习的结果而提高的事实。研究知觉学习可以提供对学习和记忆的一般原理的洞察，以及我们的大脑作为经验的功能而适应和改变的方式。这些知识可以用来设计出在需要高度视觉技能的应用领域(例如放射学和医学成像)提高技能的方法，或者也许可以减轻与神经障碍相关的视觉缺陷，如弱视、脑损伤或衰老的影响。许多实验检验了知觉学习如何提高我们执行简单任务的能力，这些任务要求我们区分在一个维度(例如，方向)上不同的两种模式。然而，我的研究考察了学习如何改变我们识别纹理和面部等空间复杂图案的能力。使用更复杂的图案的一个明显原因是，它们可以更好地洞察学习如何影响我们对自然主义图案、纹理和物体(以及重要类别的“人造”图案，如射线图像)的感知。此外，为了确定如何改变学习理论以解释在各种条件下的学习，有必要研究在逐渐复杂的刺激和/或任务中的学习。因此，目前的提案描述了几个项目，这些项目考察了影响我们对复杂模式的感知如何通过学习而改变的因素，以及如何将这种学习概括或转移到在实践中看不到的新模式

My research examines the factors that determine how we perceive visual patterns, and the way those factors are affected by perceptual learning. Perceptual learning refers to the fact that our ability to detect, discriminate, and identify patterns improves as a result of practice. Studying perceptual learning can provide insights into the general principles of learning and memory, and into the ways our brain adapts and changes as a function of experience. This knowledge could be used to devise ways of improving skills in applied areas requiring a high degree of visual skill (e.g., radiology and medical imaging), or perhaps alleviate visual deficits associated with neural disorders such as amblyopia, brain injuries, or the effects of aging. Many experiments examine how perceptual learning improves our ability to perform simple tasks that require us to discriminate two patterns that differ on a single dimension (e.g., orientation). However, my research examines how learning alters our ability to identify spatially complex patterns like textures and faces. One obvious reason for using more complex patterns is that they may provide better insights into the way learning affects our perception of naturalistic patterns, textures, and objects (as well as important classes of "artificial" patterns such as radiographic images). Also, investigating learning with progressively more complex stimuli and/or tasks is necessary to determine how theories of learning must be altered to account for learning in a variety of conditions. Therefore, the current proposal describes several projects that examine the factors that influence how our perception of complex patterns is altered by learning, and how that learning can be generalized or transferred to new patterns that were not seen during practice