The therapeutic benefits of perceptual learning

The modern field of perceptual learning addresses improvements of sensory and perceptual functioning in adult observers and provides powerful tools to ameliorate the effects of neurological conditions that involve a sensory or attentional deficit. While the sensory systems were once thought to be plastic only during early development, modern research demonstrates a great deal of plasticity in the adult brain. Here we discuss the value of perceptual learning as a method to improve sensory and attentional function, with a brief overview of the current approaches in the field, including how perceptual learning can be highly specific to the training set, and also how new training approaches can overcome this specificity and transfer learning effects to untrained tasks. We discuss these in the context of extant applications of perceptual learning as a treatment for neurological conditions and how new knowledge mechanisms (including attention, exposure based learning, reinforcement learning and multisensory facilitation) that allow or restrict learning in the visual system can lead to enhanced treatment approaches. We suggest new approaches that integrate multiple mechanisms of perceptual learning that promise greater learning and more generalization to real world conditions.