How task regularities sharpen attentional performance
Psychologist Dock Duncan explores how the brain adapts to recurring patterns in our environment. Duncan found that statistical regularities are stored in the brain by altering the underlying connectivity between neurons—showing that our brains learn by rewiring themselves based on previous experiences.
His research shows how learning changes the fundamental way that visual attention processes noisy inputs. A special emphasis is placed on how distraction is handled by the brain, and improved via a statistical learning mechanism. Through learning, people can come to better suppress predictable distracting input. The research demonstrates that this is caused by a learning mechanism that is mediated by attention, and provide evidence that fundamental changes to the structure of the brain itself is responsible for improved attentional processing through learning of environmental regularities.
These findings offer a deeper understanding of how we learn through experience. They reveal that our learning history directly shapes the structure of our brain and influences our future behavior. In essence, who we become and how we act are fundamentally shaped by our past interactions with the world.
To reach these conclusions, Duncan used EEG to measure brain activity during attentional tasks, and applied behavioral modelling techniques to examine how the brain adapts to structure and repetition. His work offers valuable insights for the field of cognitive neuroscience and the broader study of learning and behavior.
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