Cue recruitment
Encyclopedia
Cue recruitment is a form of associative learning in human
perception
. A cue in perception is a signal that can be measured by an observer's perceptual system, that is informative about the state of some property of the world. A trusted cue is one that the system utilizes to construct appearance
, i.e. to build a percept (what one "sees") that depends on the world state. In a cue recruitment experiment, an arbitrarily chosen signal is put into correlation
with trusted cues, which makes the signal into an artificial cue. If the artificial cue acquires the ability to affect appearance in a manner similar to the trusted cues, it is said to have been recruited.
The cue recruitment experiment is a form of classical conditioning
experiment, the simplest test for associative learning in which one (or at most a few) new signal(s) are put into correlation with one or a few trusted cues. Cue recruitment (a change in perceptual appearance) does not always occur during a cue recruitment experiment.
Perceptually bistable stimuli are often used to test for cue recruitment because they allow the experimenter to measure very small cue-contingent biases in appearance. Bistable stimuli are useful for a second reason as well: trainees can easily report appearance for these stimuli. As a result, if learning occurs during the experiment, the experimenter can be sure that the learning caused a change in how the stimulus looked, rather than a change in the explicit strategy used by the trainee during responding.
Cue recruitment is one of many types of cue learning, a more general term that also encompasses other adaptive
changes in the system's use of cues. Examples of cue learning that are not cue recruitment include:
stimulus. This stimulus is perceptually bistable and may appear to rotate either left or right. To test for cue recruitment, binocular disparity cues (3D cues) were added to the Necker cube, to specify which part of the cube was in front and which was in back. The apparent direction of rotation was thereby brought under experimeter control. The new cue was that the cube moved upward or downward on every trial (contingent on its direction of rotation). Test trials contained the new cue but not the trusted cue. On these trials, trainees tended to see the cube rotating in the same direction it had during training (depending on whether its motion was upward or downward).
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
. A cue in perception is a signal that can be measured by an observer's perceptual system, that is informative about the state of some property of the world. A trusted cue is one that the system utilizes to construct appearance
Visual appearance
The visual appearance of objects is given by the way in which they reflect and transmit light. The color of objects is determined by the parts of the spectrum of light that are reflected or transmitted without being absorbed...
, i.e. to build a percept (what one "sees") that depends on the world state. In a cue recruitment experiment, an arbitrarily chosen signal is put into correlation
Correlation
In statistics, dependence refers to any statistical relationship between two random variables or two sets of data. Correlation refers to any of a broad class of statistical relationships involving dependence....
with trusted cues, which makes the signal into an artificial cue. If the artificial cue acquires the ability to affect appearance in a manner similar to the trusted cues, it is said to have been recruited.
The cue recruitment experiment is a form of classical conditioning
Classical conditioning
Classical conditioning is a form of conditioning that was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov...
experiment, the simplest test for associative learning in which one (or at most a few) new signal(s) are put into correlation with one or a few trusted cues. Cue recruitment (a change in perceptual appearance) does not always occur during a cue recruitment experiment.
Perceptually bistable stimuli are often used to test for cue recruitment because they allow the experimenter to measure very small cue-contingent biases in appearance. Bistable stimuli are useful for a second reason as well: trainees can easily report appearance for these stimuli. As a result, if learning occurs during the experiment, the experimenter can be sure that the learning caused a change in how the stimulus looked, rather than a change in the explicit strategy used by the trainee during responding.
Cue recruitment is one of many types of cue learning, a more general term that also encompasses other adaptive
Adaptation
An adaptation in biology is a trait with a current functional role in the life history of an organism that is maintained and evolved by means of natural selection. An adaptation refers to both the current state of being adapted and to the dynamic evolutionary process that leads to the adaptation....
changes in the system's use of cues. Examples of cue learning that are not cue recruitment include:
- Cue weighting. When two or more trusted cues are available to estimate the same property of the world, human perceptual systems usually exhibit data fusionData fusionData fusion, is generally defined as the use of techniques that combine data from multiple sources and gather that information into discrete, actionable items in order to achieve inferences, which will be more efficient and narrowly tailored than if they were achieved by means of disparate...
, and it is possible to change the relative weights given to different cues through training (Ernst et al., 2000). - Pattern learning. A complex pattern of signals can be learned to act as a cue that affects appearance (Sinha & Poggio, 1996).
- Recalibration. The way that a particular cue is utilized can be modified by experience (Adams et al., 2001).
Example
Cue recruitment was demonstrated by Haijiang et al. (2006) using a computer-generated rotating Necker cubeNecker cube
The Necker Cube is an optical illusion first published as a rhomboid in 1832 by Swiss crystallographer Louis Albert Necker.-Ambiguity:The Necker Cube is an ambiguous line drawing....
stimulus. This stimulus is perceptually bistable and may appear to rotate either left or right. To test for cue recruitment, binocular disparity cues (3D cues) were added to the Necker cube, to specify which part of the cube was in front and which was in back. The apparent direction of rotation was thereby brought under experimeter control. The new cue was that the cube moved upward or downward on every trial (contingent on its direction of rotation). Test trials contained the new cue but not the trusted cue. On these trials, trainees tended to see the cube rotating in the same direction it had during training (depending on whether its motion was upward or downward).
External links and references
- Adams, Banks, and van Ee (2001). Adaptation to three-dimensional distortions in human vision. Nature Neuroscience, 4: 1063-1064.
- Ernst, Banks, and Bulthoff (2000). Touch can change visual slant perception. Nature Neuroscience, 3: 69-73.
- Haijiang, Saunders, Stone and Backus (2006). Demonstration of cue recruitment: Change in visual appearance by means of Pavlovian conditioning. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA, 103: 483-488.
- Sinha and Poggio (1996). Role of learning in three-dimensional form perception. Nature, 384: 460-463.