When elicited in visually-intact humans, improvements in CS are usually specific to features of the trained stimulus, like spatial frequency, retinal location and orientation (Sowden, Rose, & Davies,
2002; Yu et al.,
2004). However, if subjects are exposed to multiple stimulus/task attributes during training, contrast learning can transfer across retinal locations (Deveau et al.,
2014; Xiao et al.,
2008; Zhang et al.,
2010), orientations (Zhang et al.,
2010) and spatial frequencies (Deveau et al.,
2014). For instance, in “double training” paradigms, subjects undergo either blocked or sequential training of contrast discrimination at one location, and orientation discrimination at a second location. This results in contrast discrimination learning across both locations (Xiao et al.,
2008). Similarly, in training plus exposure paradigms involving orientation discrimination, observers are simultaneously or subsequently passively exposed to a second, untrained orientation; learning transfers to this second orientation in tasks previously thought to be orientation-specific (Zhang et al.,
2010). In a more integrative approach, Deveau and colleagues created a “video game” task that incorporates selecting targets that vary in orientation, spatial frequency, location, and contrast amongst similarly varied patches of noise with the goal of maximizing accuracy and response time. This resulted in broadband increases in central and peripheral CS, as well as in acuity improvements (Deveau et al.,
2014). These results motivated the current study, which asked whether broad CS improvements are: (1) specific to damaged/abnormal visual systems; (2) specific to the stimuli and tasks typically used for rehabilitation in damaged/abnormal visual systems; or (3) a natural consequence of many forms of visual training, in both visually-intact and visually-impaired humans. To begin probing potential mechanisms of the learning observed, we also evaluated whether the improvements attained were specific to the eye and visual field locations trained.