Perceptual learning of task-irrelevant features depends on the sensory context.

ABSTRACT: The brain has evolved to extract behaviourally meaningful information from the environment. For example, it has been shown that visual perceptual learning (VPL) can occur for task-irrelevant stimulus features when those features are consistently paired with internal or external reinforcement signals. It is, however, unclear whether or not task-irrelevant VPL is influenced by stimulus features that are unrelated to reinforcement in a given sensory context. To address this question, we exposed participants to task-irrelevant and subliminal coherent motion stimuli in the background while they performed a central character identification task. A specific motion direction was consistently paired with the task-targets, while two other directions occurred only with distractors and, thus, were unr

SUBMITTER: Bruns P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6367344 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature