SLC Catalyst: Perceptual Learning and Brain Plasticity

University Of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Minneapolis MN

Investigators

Abstract

The aim of this SLC Catalyst activity is to develop plans for an interdisciplinary multi-institutional center devoted to translating contemporary research on perceptual learning and brain plasticity into educational and rehabilitation outcomes, with special emphasis on the needs of the 3+ million Americans with impaired vision. The Center will be composed of a partnership among teams of researchers at five leading sites for vision research: University of Minnesota, Vanderbilt University, Boston (MIT, Harvard, and Shepens Eye Research Institute), UCLA, and the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics (Tubingen, Germany) . These teams combine interdisciplinary expertise in perceptual development, impaired vision and special education, computational vision, neuroscience, and behavior. The key idea behind the proposed center is that learning and adaptation take place within the visual and other perceptual pathways. Understanding the principles of learning at this early input stage of information processing is a critical prerequisite for understanding human capacities that rely on sensory input. The following planning activities will be completed: 1) Identify the most important educational and rehabilitation needs related to perceptual learning and brain plasticity in reading, recognition and spatial navigation. 2) Identify the existing research barriers to solving them, and potential research solutions. 3) Hold a workshop to arrive at a consensus for a center's educational and rehabilitation priorities. 4) Incorporate these plans into a full Center proposal. Because of its intrinsic importance to human nature, vision is a model system for researchers interested in development, neuroscience, cognition and behavior, and artificial intelligence. Vision is also a topic of primary concern to educators and rehabilitation specialists with visually impaired students or clients, and to engineers and computer scientists who design adaptive technology for visually impaired people. For the most part, these two communities -- vision researchers, and vision educators and engineers -- have had little interaction, leaving unfulfilled opportunities for translating the huge body of research findings into improved quality of life for visually impaired people. Three burgeoning areas of vision research provide the basis for bridging this gulf -- perceptual learning, brain plasticity, and machine learning. Recent advances in these three areas has overturned the prevailing view that human vision is frozen in structure following a brief early critical period. There is a sea change in thought in which the visual system (and presumably other neural systems) is beginning to be regarded as modifiable throughout the human lifespan. Just how modifiable, on what time scale, and at what level of specificity are key unresolved issues to be addressed.