Masking, Integration, and Practice Effects
{'Code': '04040500', 'Directorate': {'Abbreviation': 'SBE', 'LongName': 'Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie'}, 'Division': {'Abbreviation': 'BCS', 'LongName': 'Division Of Behavioral and Cognitive Sci'}}
{'SignBlockName': 'Jasmine Young', 'PO_EMAI': 'jyoung@nsf.gov', 'PO_PHON': '7032924833'}
The goal of this project is to examine the malleability of the                  visual system, in particular, its ability to resolve stimuli over               time.  Previous research has shown that people improve over time                dramatically in some visual tasks but not in others.  Tasks that                involve the ability to resolve stimuli quickly consistently                     exhibit improvement with practice.  One such task is backward                   masking, in which a visual target, a display to be identified or                recognized, is followed closely in time by a visual mask, a                     display that lights up all the places on the screen where parts                 of targets could possibly appear.  One hypothesis is that                       practice effects in these tasks are the result of learning to                   process the information more quickly or over smaller time frames.               Several real-world tasks, such as landing a plane and hitting a                 baseball, profit from such rapid visual processing.                                                                                                             There are other activities, however, that require one to                        integrate information over time, for example, watching television               and computer screens and using fluorescent lights (this research                will use a task that simulates these examples in a controlled and               sensitive fashion).  If improvement on backward masking is the                  result of learning to process information in smaller time frames,               then performance on tasks that require integration over longer                  time frames should be impaired.  The experiments will test for                  this impairment by training people either on tasks that require                 rapid processing or on tasks that require integration and looking               for the effect of improvement on the trained task on performance                on tasks requiring the opposite skills.                                                                                                                         The experiments will also examine individual differences in                     performance on these tasks.  Some people are quite good at                      backward masking from the very beginning and others are quite                   bad.  Will those people who are good at backward masking be bad                 at integration tasks and vice versa?  Performance on backward                   masking decreases with age.  Does performance on integration                    tasks improve with age?  Are these individual differences                       reversible (i.e., the result of prior training and experience) or               the result of physiological differences and changes in the visual               system?  The experiments will help resolve these various issues.
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[{'Code': '118000', 'Text': 'HUMAN COGNITION & PERCEPTION'}, {'Code': '912000', 'Text': 'CROSS-DIRECTORATE PROGRAMS'}]
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