Can reading-specific training stimuli improve the effect of perceptual learning on peripheral reading speed?

Bernard, Jean-Baptiste; Arunkumar, Amit; Chung, Susana T. L.

doi:10.1016/j.visres.2012.06.012

Cited by 22 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…This interpretation is compatible with the findings from studies in people with amblyopia [21], in normally sighted young adults [40]–[42], and even in people with central vision loss [43]. In our study, even without the mask, children with dyslexia exhibited more difficulty than control children when they were asked to process central letter and peripheral stimuli simultaneously [44].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Reading Performance Is Enhanced by Visual Texture Discrimination Training in Chinese-Speaking Children with Developmental Dyslexia

et al. 2014

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BackgroundHigh order cognitive processing and learning, such as reading, interact with lower-level sensory processing and learning. Previous studies have reported that visual perceptual training enlarges visual span and, consequently, improves reading speed in young and old people with amblyopia. Recently, a visual perceptual training study in Chinese-speaking children with dyslexia found that the visual texture discrimination thresholds of these children in visual perceptual training significantly correlated with their performance in Chinese character recognition, suggesting that deficits in visual perceptual processing/learning might partly underpin the difficulty in reading Chinese.Methodology/Principal FindingsTo further clarify whether visual perceptual training improves the measures of reading performance, eighteen children with dyslexia and eighteen typically developed readers that were age- and IQ-matched completed a series of reading measures before and after visual texture discrimination task (TDT) training. Prior to the TDT training, each group of children was split into two equivalent training and non-training groups in terms of all reading measures, IQ, and TDT. The results revealed that the discrimination threshold SOAs of TDT were significantly higher for the children with dyslexia than for the control children before training. Interestingly, training significantly decreased the discrimination threshold SOAs of TDT for both the typically developed readers and the children with dyslexia. More importantly, the training group with dyslexia exhibited significant enhancement in reading fluency, while the non-training group with dyslexia did not show this improvement. Additional follow-up tests showed that the improvement in reading fluency is a long-lasting effect and could be maintained for up to two months in the training group with dyslexia.Conclusion/SignificanceThese results suggest that basic visual perceptual processing/learning and reading ability in Chinese might at least partially rely on overlapping mechanisms.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Reading Performance Is Enhanced by Visual Texture Discrimination Training in Chinese-Speaking Children with Developmental Dyslexia

et al. 2014

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“…A similar training paradigm also robustly improved near VA in presbyopes, with no changes in the optics of the eye . Moreover, improvements following practice under crowded conditions were reported earlier in the periphery of normally sighted people (Bernard, Arunkumar, & Chung, 2012;Chung, 2007Chung, , 2011Hussain, Webb, Astle, & McGraw, 2012;Maniglia et al, 2011), in the fovea of people with amblyopia (Hussain et al, 2012;Levi & Klein, 1985a;Li, Provost, & Levi, 2007; for review see Levi & Li, 2009) and, recently, in the fovea of normally sighted people (Lev, Ludwig et al, 2014). The specificity of the training effects was found to depend on the amount of training (Huckauf & Nazir, 2007), and the training gains were generalized to untrained spatial separations after numerous trials (Chung, Li, & Levi, 2007 for review see Levi, 2008).…”

Section: Perceptual Learning In Visionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Training on spatiotemporal masking improves crowded and uncrowded visual acuity

et al. 2015

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Spatial crowding impairs conscious visual perception and object recognition in clutter.Short presentation times produce crowding in the normal fovea, in young participants and in uncorrected presbyopes ("aging eye"), measured as reduced visual acuity (VA). On the other hand, perceptual learning improves near VA in healthy young adults, in presbyopia, and in amblyopia. Here we aimed at exploring the effects of perceptual training on crowded VA in uncorrected presbyopes with naturally decreased VA, with two specific objectives: (a) to objectively measure crowded VA, taking advantage of the natural deterioration of near visual acuity from being normal or better than normal (i.e., 20/20 or better) in young participants to naturally decreasing in uncorrected presbyopes; and (b) to explore whether perceptual training previously shown to improve visual functions as complex as reading will affect crowded VA. Visual acuity was measured under crowded and uncrowded conditions by having subjects identify letters presented for short durations ranging from 34 to 116 msec. Training consisted of detecting brief Gabor stimuli under spatial and temporal masking conditions, using the GlassesOff mobile application (GlassesOff, Inc., New York, NY)on iOS devices from a distance of 40 cm. Before training, a robust reduction in crowded VA was found in the fovea of presbyopes. Training resulted in significant improvement of letter identification under both crowded and uncrowded VA conditions for all stimulus durations. After training, the crowded condition threshold reached the level of the uncrowded threshold measured before training. Thus, training enabled the subjects to overcome the effect of reduced VA under the crowded condition. We suggest that more efficient spatial and temporal processing induced by perceptual learning allows one to improve crowded VA, including that found on naturally reduced near VA, and that this effect may transfer to improve complex visual functions, such as reading and object recognition.

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“…However, there is increasing evidence indicating that also higher level cognitive processes are relevant (e.g. Huckauf, 2007;Huckauf and Nazir, 2007;Bernard et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%