Learning to sample: eye tracking and fMRI indices of changes in object perception

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Visual Perception
• Neuroimaging

Background:

• Effective visual sampling and prior experience are crucial for mature object perception.
• The naive system's integration of variable experiences to induce perceptual change remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the mechanisms of learning to segment novel, occluded objects using fMRI and eye-tracking.
• To understand how variable visual experiences influence object perception and amodal completion.

Main Methods:

• Participants viewed a Target Scene with an occluded object, alternating with variable visual exposures of the object (Training group) or control scenes (Control group).
• fMRI and eye-tracking were used to monitor brain activity and gaze patterns during object perception tasks.
• Pretraining and posttraining tests assessed changes in object perception from 'disconnected' to 'complete'.

Main Results:

• The Training group showed a significant increase in perceiving the object as 'complete' compared to the Control group.
• Gaze patterns differed, with increased looking towards the Target Object in the Training group.
• Neuroimaging revealed involvement of the hippocampus, basal ganglia (BG), visual cortex, and fronto-parietal regions.

Conclusions:

• Ongoing, regular visual experience facilitates changes in amodal completion for occluded objects.
• The brain integrates variable visual input, involving specific neural networks, to update object perception.
• fMRI and eye-tracking provide insights into the neural and behavioral mechanisms underlying perceptual learning.