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Hebbian Reweighting on Stable Representations in Perceptual Learning
Barbara Anne Dosher1, Zhong-Lin Lu
1Department of Cognitive Sciences, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences, Center for Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, University of California, Irvine, CA92697, USA. bdosher@uci.edu , Tel: 949.824.6801.
Learning & Perception
|March 23, 2010
Summary
Perceptual learning improves task performance with practice. Evidence suggests this learning involves reweighting stable sensory information rather than altering early visual cortex representations.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Visual Perception
Background:
- Perceptual learning enhances task performance through practice.
- Specificity in learning is often linked to early visual cortex plasticity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review evidence for "reweighting" as an alternative explanation for perceptual learning.
- To evaluate the role of feedback in perceptual learning.
Main Methods:
- Task-analysis to differentiate representation enhancement from readout reweighting.
- Review of behavioral and physiological studies on perceptual learning.
Main Results:
- Reweighting of readout from stable sensory representations aligns with behavioral and physiological data.
- Augmented Hebbian learning of reweighted associations may be the primary learning mechanism.
Conclusions:
- Perceptual learning can be explained by reweighting stable representations and augmented Hebbian learning.
- Feedback's role is modulatory, not essential, and compatible with this model.
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