University of South Florida, USA.
Psychol Sci. 2012 Apr;23(4):359-63. doi: 10.1177/0956797611429800. Epub 2012 Mar 7.
When humans learn that the presence of a cue predicts the likelihood of an outcome, they can exploit this learned predictiveness, such that formation of subsequent associations between that cue and new outcomes is facilitated. Could such enhanced selection for association arise early enough to facilitate low-level visual processing? In a test of this possibility, adult volunteers first engaged in a value-learning task involving faces that were differentially predictive of monetary wins or losses. Later, in a simple recognition task, these faces were briefly presented for a variable duration and then masked. The critical presentation duration needed to produce criterion-level recognition was measured to index the visual processing speed for each learned face. Critical duration was significantly shorter for stimuli with high learned predictiveness than for stimuli with low learned predictiveness, regardless of whether they were associated with wins or losses. These results show that neural mechanisms involved in predicting future outcomes are able to modulate visual processing efficiency, probably via cortical feedback processes.
当人类了解到某个线索预示着结果出现的可能性时，他们就可以利用这种习得的预测能力，从而促进该线索与新结果之间的后续关联形成。这种增强的关联选择是否能早到足以促进低水平视觉处理呢？在对此可能性的一项测试中，成年志愿者首先参与了一项涉及面孔的价值学习任务，这些面孔对金钱收益或损失有不同的预测性。之后，在一个简单的识别任务中，这些面孔会短暂呈现一段时间，然后被掩蔽。测量产生标准水平识别所需的关键呈现持续时间，以指标化每个习得面孔的视觉处理速度。对于具有高学习预测性的刺激，其关键持续时间明显短于具有低学习预测性的刺激，无论它们是否与收益或损失相关。这些结果表明，参与预测未来结果的神经机制能够调节视觉处理效率，可能是通过皮质反馈过程。
