Perceptual learning can occur as a result of exposure to a subliminal stimulus, without the subject having to pay attention and without relevance to the particular task in hand ― but is this type of learning purely passive? Here we show that perceptual learning is not passive, but instead results from reinforcement by an independent task. As this learning occurred on a subliminal feature, our results are inconsistent with attentional learning theories in which learning occurs only on stimuli to which attention is directed. Instead, our findings suggest that the successful recognition of a relevant stimulus can trigger an internal reward and give rise to the learning of irrelevant and even subliminal features that are correlated with the occurrence of the reward.
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