Abstract
Imagine if you could see better, hear better, have improved memory, and even become more intelligent through simple training done on your own computer, smartphone, or tablet. Just as physical fitness underwent a revolution in the 20th century, brain fitness is being transformed through innovations in psychology, neuroscience and computer science. This talk discusses recent research that begins to unlock this potential in the context of training vision. Research in the field of perceptual learning has demonstrated that vision can be improved in both normally seeing and visually impaired individuals, however, a limitation of most perceptual learning approaches is their emphasis on simplicity. In the present research, we adopted an integrative approach where the goal is not to achieve highly specific learning but instead to achieve general improvements to vision. We combined multiple perceptual learning approaches that have individually contributed to increasing the speed, magnitude and generality of learning into a perceptual-learning based video-game. Our results demonstrate broad-based benefits of vision and real world on-field benefits in baseball players. I discuss both the exciting potential of the approach and limitations associated with the young stage of the field.