Constraining the Possible Mechanisms Underlying Performance Improvements Following Peripheral Vision Training

Abstract Some training paradigms can improve performance specific to the trained portion of the visual field. Similarly, experience with both pathological and simulated central vision loss can result in compensatory improvement in performance specific to a spared retinal location. The mechanisms underlying these improvements are still debated. Modifications in the capacity to allocate attention to trained locations might explain some of the changes in performance after learning, especially given similarities between behavioral improvements due to training and improvements due to changes in attention. Using a gaze-contingent simulated scotoma paradigm which simulates central vision loss, we tested whether training to use peripheral vision influenced three aspects of visual attention: habitual attention, dynamic exogenous attention, and dynamic endogenous attention. After training, performance improvements were consistent with increased habitual attention to the trained location. Conversely, measures of dynamic shifts of attention (exogenous and endogenous attention) improved similarly in both trained and untrained locations. The lack of retinotopic specificity in dynamic attention improvements suggests that retinotopically specific perceptual improvements following simulated central vision loss are not mediated by dynamic attention changes. On the other hand, habitual attention did change retinotopically, leaving the possibility open that this aspect of attention may drive some retinotopically specific training effects. This work constrains the range of mechanisms that could underlie performance improvements after peripheral vision training, suggesting that habitual attention and dynamic attention are affected independently.