Which Direction Is up for a High Pitch?
Source: Volume 29, Issue 1-3, pp 113 - 132Low- and high-pitched sounds are perceptually associated with low and high visuospatial elevations, respectively. The spatial properties of this association are not well understood. Here we report two experiments that investigated whether low and high tones can be used as spatial cues to upright for self-orientation and identified the spatial frame(s) of reference used in perceptually binding auditory pitch to visuospatial ‘up’ and ‘down’. In experiment 1, participants’ perceptual upright (PU) was measured while lying on their right side with and without high- and low-pi...
Source: Multisensory research - November 2, 2015 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Michael J. Carnevale and Laurence R. Harris Source Type: research
Understanding the Correspondences: Introduction to the Special Issue on Crossmodal Correspondences
Source: Volume 29, Issue 1-3, pp 1 - 6 (Source: Multisensory research)
Source: Multisensory research - November 2, 2015 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Cesare V. Parise, Charles Spence and Ophelia Deroy Source Type: research
Which Direction Is up for a High Pitch? (Advance Article)
Source: Page Count 20Low- and high-pitched sounds are perceptually associated with low and high visuospatial elevations, respectively. The spatial properties of this association are not well understood. Here we report two experiments that investigated whether low and high tones can be used as spatial cues to upright for self-orientation and identified the spatial frame(s) of reference used in perceptually binding auditory pitch to visuospatial ‘up’ and ‘down’. In experiment 1, participants’ perceptual upright (PU) was measured while lying on their right side with and without high- and low-pitched sounds played t...
Source: Multisensory research - October 21, 2015 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Michael J. Carnevale and Laurence R. Harris Source Type: research
Nonrandom Associations of Graphemes with Colors in Arabic
Source: Page Count 30Numerous studies demonstrate people associate colors with letters and numbers in systematic ways. But most of these studies rely on speakers of English, or closely related languages. This makes it difficult to know how generalizable these findings are, or what factors might underlie these associations. We investigated letter–color and number–color associations in Arabic speakers, who have a different writing system and unusual word structure compared to Standard Average European languages. We also aimed to identify grapheme–color synaesthetes (people who have conscious color experiences with lett...
Source: Multisensory research - September 28, 2015 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tessa M. van Leeuwen, Mark Dingemanse, Büşra Todil, Amira Agameya and Asifa Majid Source Type: research
Haptic and Tactile Adjectives Are Consistently Mapped onto Color Space (Advance Article)
In this study, participants were asked to match tactile and haptic adjectives to color samples shown individually on a screen. They could select one to 11 tactile and haptic terms, presented in 11 pairs of opposed adjectives. The results showed a regular pattern in the way tactile and haptic terms were matched to color. Our results further revealed that the colors to which tactile and haptic terms were matched did not fall within the boundaries of color lexical categories, suggesting that the associations were not based on lexicon — despite the frequent occurrence of linguistic expressions such as ‘soft pink’, not a...
Source: Multisensory research - September 18, 2015 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Yasmina Jraissati, Nadiya Slobodenyuk, Ali Kanso, Lama Ghanem and Imad Elhajj Source Type: research
Statistically Optimal Multisensory Cue Integration: A Practical Tutorial
Source: Page Count 39Humans combine redundant multisensory estimates into a coherent multimodal percept. Experiments in cue integration have shown for many modality pairs and perceptual tasks that multisensory information is fused in a statistically optimal manner: observers take the unimodal sensory reliability into consideration when performing perceptual judgments. They combine the senses according to the rules of Maximum Likelihood Estimation to maximize overall perceptual precision. This tutorial explains in an accessible manner how to design optimal cue integration experiments and how to analyse the results from thes...
Source: Multisensory research - September 18, 2015 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Marieke Rohde, Loes C. J. van Dam and Marc O. Ernst Source Type: research
Cross-Modal Correspondences in Non-human Mammal Communication
Source: Page Count 43For both humans and other animals, the ability to combine information obtained through different senses is fundamental to the perception of the environment. It is well established that humans form systematic cross-modal correspondences between stimulus features that can facilitate the accurate combination of sensory percepts. However, the evolutionary origins of the perceptual and cognitive mechanisms involved in these cross-modal associations remain surprisingly underexplored. In this review we outline recent comparative studies investigating how non-human mammals naturally combine information encoded...
Source: Multisensory research - September 18, 2015 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Victoria F. Ratcliffe, Anna M. Taylor and David Reby Source Type: research
Vestibular Function and Depersonalization/Derealization Symptoms
Source: Volume 28, Issue 5-6, pp 637 - 651Patients with an acquired sensory dysfunction may experience symptoms of detachment from self or from the environment, which are related primarily to nonspecific symptoms of common mental disorders and secondarily, to the specific sensory dysfunction. This is consistent with the proposal that sensory dysfunction could provoke distress and a discrepancy between the multi-sensory frame given by experience and the actual perception. Both vestibular stimuli and vestibular dysfunction can underlie unreal experiences. Vestibular afferents provide a frame of reference (linear and angular ...
Source: Multisensory research - July 31, 2015 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Kathrine Jáuregui Renaud Source Type: research
Disrupting Vestibular Activity Disrupts Body Ownership
Source: Volume 28, Issue 5-6, pp 581 - 590People are more sensitive at detecting asynchrony between a self-generated movement and visual feedback concerning that movement when the movement is viewed from a first-person perspective. We call this the ‘self-advantage’ and interpret it as an objective measure of self. Here we ask if disruption of the vestibular system in healthy individuals affects the self-advantage. Participants performed finger movements while viewing their hand in a first-person (‘self’) or third-person (‘other’) perspective and indicated which of two periods (one with minimum delay and the oth...
Source: Multisensory research - July 31, 2015 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Adria E. N. Hoover and Laurence R. Harris Source Type: research
Vestibular–Somatosensory Interactions: A Mechanism in Search of a Function?
Source: Volume 28, Issue 5-6, pp 559 - 579No unimodal vestibular cortex has been identified in the human brain. Rather, vestibular inputs are strongly integrated with signals from other sensory modalities, such as vision, touch and proprioception. This convergence could reflect an important mechanism for maintaining a perception of the body, including individual body parts, relative to the rest of the environment. Neuroimaging, electrophysiological and psychophysical studies showed evidence for multisensory interactions between vestibular and somatosensory signals. However, no convincing overall theoretical framework has b...
Source: Multisensory research - July 31, 2015 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Elisa Raffaella Ferrè and Patrick Haggard Source Type: research
Making Sense of the Body: the Role of Vestibular Signals
Source: Volume 28, Issue 5-6, pp 525 - 557The role of the vestibular system in posture and eye movement control has been extensively described. By contrast, how vestibular signals contribute to bodily perceptions is a more recent research area in the field of cognitive neuroscience. In the present review article, I will summarize recent findings showing that vestibular signals play a crucial role in making sense of the body. First, data will be presented showing that vestibular signals contribute to bodily perceptions ranging from low-level bodily perceptions, such as touch, pain, and the processing of the body’s metric ...
Source: Multisensory research - July 31, 2015 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Christophe Lopez Source Type: research
The Components of Vestibular Cognition — Motion Spatial Perception
Source: Volume 28, Issue 5-6, pp 507 - 524Vestibular cognition can be divided into two main functions — a primary vestibular sensation of self-motion and a derived sensation of spatial orientation. Although the vestibular system requires calibration from other senses for optimal functioning, both vestibular spatial and vestibular motion perception are typically employed when navigating without vision. A recent important finding is the cerebellar mediation of the uncoupling of reflex (i.e., the vestibular-ocular reflex) from vestibular motion perception (Perceptuo-Reflex Uncoupling). The brain regions that mediate vesti...
Source: Multisensory research - July 31, 2015 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Barry M. Seemungal Source Type: research
Prediction in the Vestibular Control of Arm Movements
Source: Volume 28, Issue 5-6, pp 487 - 505The contribution of vestibular signals to motor control has been evidenced in postural, locomotor, and oculomotor studies. Here, we review studies showing that vestibular information also contributes to the control of arm movements during whole-body motion. The data reviewed suggest that vestibular information is used by the arm motor system to maintain the initial hand position or the planned hand trajectory unaltered during body motion. This requires integration of vestibular and cervical inputs to determine the trunk motion dynamics. These studies further suggest that the vestib...
Source: Multisensory research - July 31, 2015 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Jean Blouin, Jean-Pierre Bresciani, Etienne Guillaud and Martin Simoneau Source Type: research
Internal Models, Vestibular Cognition, and Mental Imagery: Conceptual Considerations
Source: Volume 28, Issue 5-6, pp 443 - 460Vestibular cognition has recently gained attention. Despite numerous experimental and clinical demonstrations, it is not yet clear what vestibular cognition really is. For future research in vestibular cognition, adopting a computational approach will make it easier to explore the underlying mechanisms. Indeed, most modeling approaches in vestibular science include a top-down or a prioricomponent. We review recent Bayesian optimal observer models, and discuss in detail the conceptual value of prior assumptions, likelihood and posterior estimates for research in vestibular ...
Source: Multisensory research - July 31, 2015 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Fred W. Mast and Andrew W. Ellis Source Type: research
Contribution of Bodily and Gravitational Orientation Cues to Face and Letter Recognition
Source: Volume 28, Issue 5-6, pp 427 - 442Sensory information provided by the vestibular system is crucial in cognitive processes such as the ability to recognize objects. The orientation at which objects are most easily recognized — the perceptual upright (PU) — is influenced by body orientation with respect to gravity as detected from the somatosensory and vestibular systems. To date, the influence of these sensory cues on the PU has been measured using a letter recognition task. Here we assessed whether gravitational influences on letter recognition also extend to human face recognition. 13 right-handed observers ...
Source: Multisensory research - July 31, 2015 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Michael Barnett-Cowan, Jacqueline C. Snow and Jody C. Culham Source Type: research
