Farzin Faraz, Norcia Anthony M
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
J Vis. 2011 Dec 6;11(14):10.1167/11.14.6 6. doi: 10.1167/11.14.6.
This study examined the effects of amblyopia on perceptual decision-making processes to determine the consequences of visual deprivation on the development of higher level cortical networks outside of the visual cortex. A variant of the Eriksen flanker task was used to measure response time and accuracy for decisions made in the presence of response-selection conflict. Performance of adults with amblyopia was compared to that of neurotypical participants of the same age. Additionally, simple and choice reaction time tasks presented in the visual and the auditory modality were used to control for factors such as feature visibility, crowding, and motor execution speed. A selective deficit in response time for visual decisions was found when individuals with amblyopia used either the amblyopic or non-amblyopic (dominant) eye, and this deficit was independent of visual acuity, motor time, and performance accuracy. In trial conditions that provoked response-selection conflict, responses were significantly delayed in amblyopic relative to neurotypical participants and were not subject to standard trial sequence effects. Our results indicate that, beyond the known effects of abnormal visual experience on visual cortex, suboptimal binocular input during a developmental critical period may also impact cortical connections to downstream areas of the brain, including parietal and frontal cortices, that are believed to underlie decision and response-selection processes.
本研究考察了弱视对知觉决策过程的影响，以确定视觉剥夺对视觉皮层以外更高层次皮层网络发育的影响。采用一种变体的埃里克森侧翼任务来测量在存在反应选择冲突的情况下做出决策的反应时间和准确性。将弱视成年人的表现与同龄正常参与者的表现进行比较。此外，还使用了视觉和听觉模态下的简单和选择反应时间任务，以控制诸如特征可见性、拥挤和运动执行速度等因素。当弱视个体使用弱视眼或非弱视（优势）眼时，发现视觉决策的反应时间存在选择性缺陷，且这种缺陷与视力、运动时间和表现准确性无关。在引发反应选择冲突的试验条件下，弱视参与者的反应相对于正常参与者明显延迟，且不受标准试验序列效应的影响。我们的结果表明，除了异常视觉经验对视觉皮层的已知影响外，发育关键期次优的双眼输入也可能影响大脑下游区域（包括顶叶和额叶皮层）的皮层连接，而这些区域被认为是决策和反应选择过程的基础。
