Abstract: Perceptual learning refers to the robust gains in performance on basic perceptual tasks that are induced by sensory experience and are dependent on practice. Moreover, many perceptual skills, once acquired, are retained over long time intervals. During recent two decades, the results of many studies indicated that all areas of the brain, including the primary sensory cortex, are plastic even in adults. Based on the recent advances on visual perceptual learning, issues such as where in the brain, when and how practice-related changes occur were reviewed. Visual perceptual learning involves multiple brain areas and can occur in different time courses. Slow learning following fast learning may be a rule of perceptual learning. As results of perceptual learning, the representations of complex objects will shift from higher brain areas to lower areas, and the task will be performed more automatically

Key words: vision, perceptual learning, specificity, generalization, neural substrates