Developmental vision determines the reference frame for the multisensory control of action.

ABSTRACT: Both animal and human studies suggest that action goals are defined in external coordinates regardless of their sensory modality. The present study used an auditory-manual task to test whether the default use of such an external reference frame is innately determined or instead acquired during development because of the increasing dominance of vision over manual control. In Experiment I, congenitally blind, late blind, and age-matched sighted adults had to press a left or right response key depending on the bandwidth of pink noise bursts presented from either the left or right loudspeaker. Although the spatial location of the sounds was entirely task-irrelevant, all groups responded more efficiently with uncrossed hands when the sound was presented from the same side as the responding hand

SUBMITTER: Roder B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1838672 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature