School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, UK.
Psychol Sci. 2011 Jun;22(6):724-30. doi: 10.1177/0956797611409591. Epub 2011 May 17.
Practice improves visual performance on simple tasks in which stimuli vary along one dimension. Such learning frequently is stimulus-specific and enduring, and has been associated with plasticity in striate cortex. It is unclear if similar lasting effects occur for naturalistic patterns that vary on multiple dimensions. We measured perceptual learning in identification tasks that used faces and textures, stimuli that engage multiple stages in visual processing. Performance improved significantly across 2 consecutive days of practice. More important, the effects of practice were remarkably stable across time: Improvements were maintained approximately 1 year later, and both the relative difficulty of identifying individual stimuli and individual differences in performance were essentially constant across sessions. Finally, the effects of practice were largely stimulus-specific. Our results suggest that the characteristics of perceptual learning are similar across a spectrum of stimulus complexities.
练习可以提高在单一维度上变化的简单任务的视觉表现。这种学习通常是刺激特异性和持久的，并且与纹状皮层的可塑性有关。目前尚不清楚是否会对多维度变化的自然模式产生类似的持久影响。我们在使用面孔和纹理的识别任务中测量了知觉学习，这些刺激涉及视觉处理的多个阶段。在连续两天的练习中，表现显著提高。更重要的是，练习的效果在时间上非常稳定：大约 1 年后，改进得以维持，并且识别个别刺激的相对难度和表现的个体差异在整个过程中基本保持不变。最后，练习的效果在很大程度上是刺激特异性的。我们的结果表明，知觉学习的特征在一系列刺激复杂性中是相似的。
