Department of Psychology, University of California Riverside, Riverside, California, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2011;6(9):e24556. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0024556. Epub 2011 Sep 9.
Consolidation, a process that stabilizes memory trace after initial acquisition, has been studied for over a century. A number of studies have shown that a skill or memory must be consolidated after acquisition so that it becomes resistant to interference from new information. Previous research found that training on a peripheral 3-dot hyperacuity task could retrogradely interfere with earlier training on the same task but with a mirrored stimulus configuration. However, a recent study failed to replicate this finding. Here we address the controversy by replicating both patterns of results, however, under different experimental settings. We find that retrograde interference occurs when eye-movements are tightly controlled, using a gaze-contingent display, where the peripheral stimuli were only presented when subjects maintained fixation. On the other hand, no retrograde interference was found in a group of subjects who performed the task without this fixation control. Our results provide a plausible explanation of why divergent results were found for retrograde interference in perceptual learning on the 3-dot hyperacuity task and confirm that retrograde interference can occur in this type of low-level perceptual learning. Furthermore, our results demonstrate the importance of eye-movement controls in studies of perceptual learning in the peripheral visual field.
巩固，即在初始获取后稳定记忆痕迹的过程，已经研究了一个多世纪。许多研究表明，一项技能或记忆必须在获取后进行巩固，以便使其免受新信息的干扰。先前的研究发现，在外周 3 点超敏任务上进行训练可以逆行干扰同一任务的早期训练，但刺激配置为镜像。然而，最近的一项研究未能复制这一发现。在这里，我们通过复制这两种结果模式来解决争议，但在不同的实验设置下。我们发现，当使用注视相关显示严格控制眼球运动时，即只有当受试者保持注视时才会呈现外周刺激，会发生逆行干扰。另一方面，在一组没有这种固定控制的受试者中，没有发现逆行干扰。我们的结果提供了一个合理的解释，为什么在外周 3 点超敏任务的知觉学习中逆行干扰的结果不同，并证实逆行干扰可以发生在这种类型的低水平知觉学习中。此外，我们的结果表明眼球运动控制在研究外周视觉场的知觉学习中的重要性。
