TY - JOUR
T1 - Greater plasticity in lower-level than higher-level visual motion processing in a passive perceptual learning task
AU - Watanabe, Takeo
AU - Nanez, Jose
AU - Koyama, Shinichi
AU - Mukai, Ikuko
AU - Liederman, Jacqueline
AU - Sasaki, Yuka
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank M. Herzog and D. Somers for comments. This research was supported by a Human Behavior & Cognition Program of the National Science Foundation grant (BCS-9905194) to T.W. and an ASU West Vision Science Lab grant to J.N.
PY - 2002/10
Y1 - 2002/10
N2 - Simple exposure is sufficient to sensitize the human visual system to a particular direction of motion, but the underlying mechanisms of this process are unclear. Here, in a passive perceptual learning task, we found that exposure to task-irrelevant motion improved sensitivity to the local motion directions within the stimulus, which are processed at low levels of the visual system. In contrast, task-irrelevant motion had no effect on sensitivity to the global motion direction, which is processed at higher levels. The improvement persisted for at least several months. These results indicate that when attentional influence is limited, lower-level motion processing is more receptive to long-term modification than higher-level motion processing in the visual cortex.
AB - Simple exposure is sufficient to sensitize the human visual system to a particular direction of motion, but the underlying mechanisms of this process are unclear. Here, in a passive perceptual learning task, we found that exposure to task-irrelevant motion improved sensitivity to the local motion directions within the stimulus, which are processed at low levels of the visual system. In contrast, task-irrelevant motion had no effect on sensitivity to the global motion direction, which is processed at higher levels. The improvement persisted for at least several months. These results indicate that when attentional influence is limited, lower-level motion processing is more receptive to long-term modification than higher-level motion processing in the visual cortex.
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U2 - 10.1038/nn915
DO - 10.1038/nn915
M3 - Article
C2 - 12219093
AN - SCOPUS:0036785837
VL - 5
SP - 1003
EP - 1009
JO - Nature Neuroscience
JF - Nature Neuroscience
SN - 1097-6256
IS - 10
ER -