Abstract
Sensory stimuli become easier to detect or distinguish with practice. It is generally assumed that the task-relevant stimulus dimension becomes increasingly more salient as a result of attentively performing the task at a level that is neither too easy nor too difficult. However, here we show improved auditory frequency discrimination following training with physically identical tones that were impossible to discriminate. We also show that learning transfers across tone frequencies and across modalities: training on a silent visuospatial computer game improved thresholds on the auditory discrimination task. We suggest that three processes are necessary for optimal perceptual learning: sensitization through exposure to the stimulus, modality- and dimension-specific attention, and general arousal.
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Acknowledgements
We thank L. Halliday and E. Vavasour for collecting the additional data presented in Supplementary Figure 2, and S. Cirstea and M. Edmondson-Jones for assistance with statistical analysis. This study was entirely supported by the Medical Research Council, UK.
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S.A. and D.R.M. designed the study and prepared the manuscript, and all authors contributed to planning the experiments. A.I. collected most of the data. S.A. analyzed the data.
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D.R.M. declares that, as a director and shareholder in MindWeavers Ltd (see mindweaver.co.uk), there may be a perception of a conflict of interest with the results of this study. D.R.M. also declares, however, that the study was completed independently of MindWeavers and that the results were collected and analyzed by the other authors who have no involvement whatsoever in MindWeavers.
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Amitay, S., Irwin, A. & Moore, D. Discrimination learning induced by training with identical stimuli. Nat Neurosci 9, 1446–1448 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1787
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1787
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