Dataset Information

Contextual factors multiplex to control multisensory processes.

ABSTRACT: This study analyzed high-density event-related potentials (ERPs) within an electrical neuroimaging framework to provide insights regarding the interaction between multisensory processes and stimulus probabilities. Specifically, we identified the spatiotemporal brain mechanisms by which the proportion of temporally congruent and task-irrelevant auditory information influences stimulus processing during a visual duration discrimination task. The spatial position (top/bottom) of the visual stimulus was indicative of how frequently the visual and auditory stimuli would be congruent in their duration (i.e., context of congruence). Stronger influences of irrelevant sound were observed when contexts associated with a high proportion of auditory-visual congruence repeated and also when contexts associated with a low proportion of congruence switched. Context of congruence and context transition resulted in weaker brain responses at 228 to 257 ms poststimulus to conditions giving rise to larger behavioral cross-modal interactions. Importantly, a control oddball task revealed that both congruent and incongruent audiovisual stimuli triggered equivalent non-linear multisensory interactions when congruence was not a relevant dimension. Collectively, these results are well explained by statistical learning, which links a particular context (here: a spatial location) with a certain level of top-down attentional control that further modulates cross-modal interactions based on whether a particular context repeated or changed. The current findings shed new light on the importance of context-based control over multisensory processing, whose influences multiplex across finer and broader time scales.

SUBMITTER: Sarmiento BR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6867473 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Contextual factors multiplex to control multisensory processes.

Sarmiento Beatriz R BR Matusz Pawel J PJ Sanabria Daniel D Murray Micah M MM

Human brain mapping 20151015 1

This study analyzed high-density event-related potentials (ERPs) within an electrical neuroimaging framework to provide insights regarding the interaction between multisensory processes and stimulus probabilities. Specifically, we identified the spatiotemporal brain mechanisms by which the proportion of temporally congruent and task-irrelevant auditory information influences stimulus processing during a visual duration discrimination task. The spatial position (top/bottom) of the visual stimulus ...[more]

PMID: 26466522

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Project description:In naturalistic situations, sounds are often perceived in conjunction with matching visual impressions. For example, we see and hear the neighbor's dog barking in the garden. Still, there is a good chance that we recognize the neighbor's dog even when we only hear it barking, but do not see it behind the fence. Previous studies with normal-hearing (NH) listeners have shown that the audio-visual presentation of a perceptual object (like an animal) increases the probability to recognize this object later on, even if the repeated presentation of this object occurs in a purely auditory condition. In patients with a cochlear implant (CI), however, the electrical hearing of sounds is impoverished, and the ability to recognize perceptual objects in auditory conditions is significantly limited. It is currently not well understood whether CI users - as NH listeners - show a multisensory facilitation for auditory recognition. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) and a continuous recognition paradigm with auditory and audio-visual stimuli to test the prediction that CI users show a benefit from audio-visual perception. Indeed, the congruent audio-visual context resulted in an improved recognition ability of objects in an auditory-only condition, both in the NH listeners and the CI users. The ERPs revealed a group-specific pattern of voltage topographies and correlations between these ERP maps and the auditory recognition ability, indicating a different processing of congruent audio-visual stimuli in CI users when compared to NH listeners. Taken together, our results point to distinct cortical processing of naturalistic audio-visual objects in CI users and NH listeners, which however allows both groups to improve the recognition ability of these objects in a purely auditory context. Our findings are of relevance for future clinical research since audio-visual perception might also improve the auditory rehabilitation after cochlear implantation.

Dataset Information

Contextual factors multiplex to control multisensory processes.

Publications

Contextual factors multiplex to control multisensory processes.

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