Abstract
Human haptic perception is not a constant, but subject to manifold modifications throughout lifespan. Major determinants are development and aging as well as alterations following injury and compensatory brain reorganization. While during early development haptic perception is refined due to maturation and experience, haptic perception during aging deteriorates due to many factors, not all of them fully understood. Besides these lifespan factors, it is common wisdom that haptic perception and skills in general improve through practice (Fig. 1), see also [1]. Perceptual learning involves relatively long-lasting changes to an organism’s perceptual system that improve its ability to respond to its environment and are caused by this environment. In case of Blinds or in Musicians, both characterized by superior haptic perception, improvement is assumed to be due to use-dependent or experience-dependent neuroplasticity mechanisms.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Suggested readings
Dinse HR, Kalisch T, Ragert P, Pleger B, Schwenkreis P, Tegenthoff M (2005) Improving human haptic performance in normal and impaired human populations through unattended activation-based learning. Transaction Appl Perc 2: 71–88
Dinse HR, Ragert P, Pleger B, Schwenkreis, P, Tegenthoff M (2003) Pharmacological modulation of perceptual learning and associated cortical reorganization. Science 301: 91–94
Fahle M, Poggio T (2002) Perceptual Learning. MIT Press
Goldstone RL (1998) Perceptual learning. Ann Rev Psychol 49: 585–612
Karni A, Sagi D (1991) Where practice makes perfect in texture discrimination: evidence for primary visual cortex plasticity. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 88: 4966–4970
Recanzone GH, Merzenich MM, Jenkins WM, Grajski K, Dinse HR (1992) Topographic reorganization of the hand representation in cortical area 3b of owl monkeys trained in a frequency discrimination task. J Neurophysiol 67: 1031–1056
Seitz A, Watanabe T (2005) A unified model for perceptual learning. Trends Cogn Sci 9: 329–334
Seitz AR, Dinse HR (2007) A common framework for perceptual learning. Curr Opin Neurobiol 17: 148–153
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Birkhäuser Verlag
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dinse, H.R., Wilimzig, C., Kalisch, T. (2008). Learning effects in haptic perception. In: Grunwald, M. (eds) Human Haptic Perception: Basics and Applications. Birkhäuser Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7643-7612-3_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7643-7612-3_13
Publisher Name: Birkhäuser Basel
Print ISBN: 978-3-7643-7611-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-7643-7612-3
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)