<html>
<body>
<div align="center"><font size=4><b>The UCSD Department of Cognitive
Science is pleased to announce a talk by<br><br>
</font><font size=5>Aaron Seitz<br><br>
</font><h4><b>Department of Psychology</b></h4><b>Boston
University<br><br>
<br>
<font face="arial" size=4>Friday, February 1, 2008 at 12pm<br>
Cognitive Science Building, room 003<br><br>
<br>
</b></font><font size=5>"Mechanisms of Perceptual
Learning"<br><br>
<br>
</font></div>
We are constantly learning new things as we go about our lives. In
addition to learning new facts, procedures and concepts, we are also
refining our sensory abilities. How and when these sensory modifications
take place is the focus of intense study and debate. In this talk I will
present recent findings from two lines of perceptual learning
research.<br><br>
I will first discuss recent advances in the processes of task-irrelevant
perceptual learning (TIPL). While sensory improvements were thought only
to occur when attention is focused on the stimuli to be learned
(task-relevant learning), recent studies demonstrate performance
improvements independent of the focus of attention (i.e. TIPL). In this
talk, I will discuss research showing that TIPL can occur through
stimulus-reward pairings in the absence of a behavior task or awareness
to the learned stimuli. I will also present<br>
research showing that physiological correlates of this learning can be
found in Macaque V4. <br><br>
In the other part of my talk, I will present new research showing that
training with a multisensory audio-visual stimulus produces enhanced
visual perceptual learning. This multisensory facilitatory effect depends
upon the featural relations between the auditory and visual stimuli;
suggesting that the benefits of multisensory training may result from
low-level crossmodal interactions. In addition to behavioral results, I
will discuss preliminary fMRI results that elucidate the neural circuitry
underlying this multisensory learning.<br><br>
</body>
</html>