Georg-Elias-Müller Institute for Psychology, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.
Conscious Cogn. 2010 Jun;19(2):656-66. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2009.12.002. Epub 2009 Dec 30.
In vision research metacontrast masking is a widely used technique to reduce the visibility of a stimulus. Typically, studies attempt to reveal general principles that apply to a large majority of participants and tend to omit possible individual differences. The neural plasticity of the visual system, however, entails the potential capability for individual differences in the way observers perform perceptual tasks. We report a case of perceptual learning in a metacontrast masking task that leads to the enhancement of two types of adult human observers despite identical learning conditions. In a priming task both types of observers exhibited the same priming effects, which were insensitive to learning. Findings suggest that visual processing of target stimuli in the metacontrast masking task is based on neural levels with sufficient plasticity to enable the development of two types of observers, which do not contribute to processing of target stimuli in the priming task.
在视觉研究中，对比掩蔽是一种广泛用于降低刺激可见度的技术。通常，研究试图揭示适用于绝大多数参与者的一般原则，而倾向于忽略可能存在的个体差异。然而，视觉系统的神经可塑性意味着观察者在执行感知任务时可能存在个体差异。我们报告了一个在对比掩蔽任务中的知觉学习案例，尽管学习条件相同，但这导致了两种类型的成年人类观察者的感知能力增强。在启动任务中，两种类型的观察者都表现出相同的启动效应，而这些效应不受学习的影响。研究结果表明，在对比掩蔽任务中对目标刺激的视觉处理是基于具有足够可塑性的神经水平，从而使两种类型的观察者得以发展，而这些观察者对启动任务中的目标刺激的处理没有贡献。
