Roving in perceptual learning: stimulus interference and overlapping neural populations

Abstract

Volume 8, Number 6, Abstract 479, Page 479a doi:10.1167/8.6.479 http://journalofvision.org/8/6/479/ ISSN 1534-7362 Roving in perceptual learning: stimulus interference and overlapping neural populations Elisa M. Tartaglia Laboratory of Psychophysics, Brain Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland [e-mail] Kristoffer C. Aaberg Laboratory of Psychophysics, Brain Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland Michael H. Herzog Laboratory of Psychophysics, Brain Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland Abstract Performance usually improves when observers train with one type of a visual stimulus. Roving denotes the situation when, instead of one, two or more types of stimuli are presented randomly interleaved (one per trial). For some stimulus types, performance improves also in roving situations whereas for others it does not. To understand when roving impedes perceptual learning, we conducted four experiments. In each experiment, the very same bisection stimulus was randomly interleaved with a different stimulus type. Performance improved when a bisection and a vernier stimulus were randomly interleaved. However, no learning was found when we randomly interleaved this bisection stimulus with another one being twice as long. Based on these results, we propose that roving impedes performance when two stimuli excite strongly overlapping neural populations