Enhancing Visual Perceptual Learning Through Reward and Sleep Berard, Aaron V creator 2016 xv, 144 p. born digital Thesis (Ph.D. -- Brown University (2016) Watanabe, Takeo Director Sasaki, Yuka Reader Welch, Leslie Reader Brown University. Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences: Cognitive Sciences sponsor theses Abstract of “Enhancing Visual Perceptual Learning Through Reward and Sleep” by Aaron V. Berard, Ph.D., Brown University, May 2016 Visual perceptual learning (VPL) is defined as a long-term performance improvement on a perceptual task as a result of perceptual experience. Although VPL is regarded as a manifestation of plasticity in the visual cortex, research has shown that factors beyond the visual cortex facilitate VPL, such as playing video games, reward processing, and sleep related enhancements. In the first experiment of this dissertation, we tested whether frequent video game players have more robust consolidation of VPL compared to non-gamers by employing an interference experiment. As a result, we found the gamers resisted the interference effect while the non-gamers did not, suggesting more robust consolidative mechanisms compared to non-gamers. Since reward is a significant portion of playing video games, this finding was further investigated in the second experiment by examining the effects of reward on VPL sleep consolidation. Four groups were trained over a 12-hour period where two sleep groups and two wake groups received reward and two did not. This experiment yielded a significant interaction between sleep and reward over VPL. We then examined the neural mechanisms of this interaction of reward and sleep on VPL in the third experiment, where two groups were trained (one with and one without reward during training) and then tested after a 2-hour nap. We replicated the behavioral performance results from the second experiment and found that sleep and reward specifically interacted over VPL during post-training REM sleep. This finding was illustrated by extended REM durations found in the post-training nap in the reward group compared to the control group that did not receive reward. Additionally, during REM sleep, the reward group showed significantly different alpha and theta brain wave oscillation patterns compared to the control group that suggested reactivation of reward processing during REM sleep, which modulated visual processing contributing to the enhancement of VPL. visual perceptual learning reward consolidation SleepPlasticityPerception RPB 20160629 engEnglish10.7301/Z089149QIn CopyrightCollection is open for research.dissertations