Visual percep­tual learn­ing (VPL) – a type of visual skill learn­ing – has often been studied in adults as a model system to identify neural mecha­nisms of learn­ing. However, it is unclear whether children employ similar neural mecha­nisms for VPL as adults. In this project, we will use non-invasive brain imaging to measure and compare neural mecha­nisms of VPL in children and adults and examine whether and if so how learn­ing changes from child­hood to adulthood.

Visual percep­tual learn­ing (VPL) – a type of visual skill learn­ing – can occur with mere repeated exposure to a visual feature (for example, a visual orien­ta­tion or a visual motion direc­tion) even if this feature is irrel­e­vant to the perfor­mance of a given task. In young adults, the occur­rence of VPL for a task-irrel­e­vant visual feature is facil­i­tated if the feature is exposed near detec­tion thresh­old. However, it is unclear whether this VPL occurs in a similar fashion in children and which neural mecha­nisms are employed in children compared to adults. In this project, we want to inves­ti­gate whether neural mecha­nisms involved in VPL change from child­hood to adult­hood using psychophysics and non-invasive measure­ments of brain activ­ity. We are partic­u­larly inter­ested in whether neural mecha­nisms of VPL differ between children with and without learn­ing diffi­cul­ties and talented children. Using this knowl­edge, it might be possi­ble to develop train­ing proce­dures that can facil­i­tate learn­ing in children with learn­ing diffi­cul­ties based on neural mecha­nisms identi­fied in talented children.