Biology subjects

Fiser, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Fiser, J..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

Structure transfer and consolidation in visual implicit learning

Transfer learning, the re-application of previously learned higher-level regularities to novel input, is a key challenge in cognition. While previous empirical studies investigated human transfer learning in supervised or reinforcement learning for explicit knowledge, it is unknown whether such transfer occurs during naturally more common implicit and unsupervised learning and, if so, how it is related to memory consolidation. We compared the transfer of newly acquired explicit and implicit abstract knowledge during unsupervised learning by extending a visual statistical learning paradigm to a transfer learning context. We found transfer during unsupervised learning but with important differences depending on the explicitness/implicitness of the acquired knowledge. Observers acquiring explicit knowledge during initial learning could transfer the learned structures immediately. In contrast, observers with the same amount but implicit knowledge showed the opposite effect, a structural interference during transfer. However, with sleep between the learning phases, implicit observers, while still remaining implicit, switched their behaviour and showed the same pattern of transfer as explicit observers did. This effect was specific to sleep and not found after non-sleep consolidation. Our results highlight similarities and differences between explicit and implicit learning while acquiring generalizable higher-level knowledge and relying on consolidation for restructuring internal representations.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Learning in the eyes: specific changes in gaze patterns track explicit and implicit visual learning

What is the link between eye movements and sensory learning? Although some theories have argued for a permanent and automatic interaction between what we know and where we look, which continuously modulates human information- gathering behavior during both implicit and explicit learning, there exist surprisingly little evidence supporting such an ongoing interaction. We used a pure form of implicit learning called visual statistical learning and manipulated the explicitness of the task to explore how learning and eye movements interact. During both implicit exploration and explicit visual learning of unknown composite visual scenes, eye movement patterns systematically changed in accordance with the underlying statistical structure of the scenes. Moreover, the degree of change was directly correlated with the amount of knowledge the observers acquired. Our results provide the first evidence for an ongoing and specific interaction between hitherto accumulated knowledge and eye movements during both implicit and explicit learning.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2017

Development of cross-orientation suppression and size tuning and the role of experience

Many sensory neural circuits exhibit response normalization, which occurs when the response of a neuron to a combination of multiple stimuli is less than the sum of the responses to the individual stimuli presented alone. In the visual cortex, normalization takes the forms of cross-orientation suppression and surround suppression. At the onset of visual experience, visual circuits are partially developed and exhibit some mature features such as orientation selectivity, but it is unknown whether cross-orientation suppression or surround suppression are present at the onset of visual experience or require visual experience for their emergence. We characterized the development of these properties and their dependence on visual experience in ferrets. Visual experience was varied across three conditions: typical rearing, dark rearing, and dark rearing with daily exposure to simple sinusoidal gratings (14-16 hours total). Cross-orientation suppression and surround suppression were noted in the earliest observations, and did not vary considerably with experience. We also observed evidence of continued maturation of receptive field properties in the second month of visual experience: substantial length summation was observed only in the oldest animals (postnatal day 90); evoked firing rates were greatly increased in older animals; and direction selectivity required experience, but declined slightly in older animals. These results constrain the space of possible circuit implementations of these features.\n\nSignificance StatementThe development of the brain depends on both nature - factors that are independent of the experience of an individual animal - and nurture - factors that depend on experience. While orientation selectivity, one of the major response properties of neurons in visual cortex, is already present at the onset of visual experience, it is unknown if response properties that depend on interactions among multiple stimuli develop without experience. We find that the properties of crossorientation suppression and surround suppression are present at eye opening, and do not depend on visual experience. Our results are consistent with the idea that a majority of the basic properties of sensory neurons in primary visual cortex are derived independent of the experience of an individual animal.

neuroscience↗