Profiles of visual perceptual learning in feature space
Shiqi Shen,
Yueling Sun,
Jiachen Lu,
Chu Li,
Qinglin Chen,
Ce Mo,
Fang Fang,
Xilin Zhang
Affiliations
Shiqi Shen
Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510631, China; School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510631, China
Yueling Sun
Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510631, China; School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510631, China
Jiachen Lu
Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510631, China; School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510631, China
Chu Li
Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510631, China; School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510631, China
Qinglin Chen
Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510631, China; School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510631, China
Ce Mo
Department of Psychology, Sun-YatSen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510275, China
Fang Fang
School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China; IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China; Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Xilin Zhang
Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510631, China; School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510631, China; Corresponding author
Summary: Visual perceptual learning (VPL), experience-induced gains in discriminating visual features, has been studied extensively and intensively for many years, its profile in feature space, however, remains unclear. Here, human subjects were trained to perform either a simple low-level feature (grating orientation) or a complex high-level object (face view) discrimination task over a long-time course. During, immediately after, and one month after training, all results showed that in feature space VPL in grating orientation discrimination was a center-surround profile; VPL in face view discrimination, however, was a monotonic gradient profile. Importantly, these two profiles can be emerged by a deep convolutional neural network with a modified AlexNet consisted of 7 and 12 layers, respectively. Altogether, our study reveals for the first time a feature hierarchy-dependent profile of VPL in feature space, placing a necessary constraint on our understanding of the neural computation of VPL.
