Week 7 Flashcards
Speech in Noise
Vision helps to resolve ambiguity Few “lip readers” but visual speech greatly improves perception in noise Automatic Greater than sum of parts
Warning Signals
Faster response to multimodal stimuli Flashing indicator Beeping indicator Flash/Beep more reliable faster
Flavour
“Flavour is in the brain” Taste Smell Somatosensory Modulators Sight Sounds Smells Expectation
A Unified Perceptual Experience
“… it is surely one of the great remaining scientific puzzles just
how it is that signals from such completely separated and
wholly dissimilar sensory epithelia as the haircells of the
cochlea, the photoreceptors of the retina and the corpuscles
of the skin can be integrated centrally to form such a seamless
unitary perceptual world”.
Molholm and Foxe, 2010 (p 1709)
Overview - Perception
A primary role of the brain
Decide on best/most appropriate action/behaviour
Survival depends on speed and accuracy
with which an organism can evaluate
external events and properly react to
them
gather, interpret and represent information
What are the 4 Multisensory Perceptions?
Light, sound, mechanical and chemicals
what is the role of Multisensory Perception?
evaluate external events and properly react
to them
Different modalities can substitute when individually
compromised (eg vision lost in the dark)
• Different fields of operation – touch/smell/taste for up close and
vision/hearing for distance
• Resolve ambiguities – 2 things may sound the same but look
different; boost signal to noise
Multisensory integration enhances our ability to perceive
and understand our environment, enabling us to better
interact with our surroundings
Redundant Targets Effect
Miller (1982) • Speeded response to either audio (A), visual (V), or audio-visual (AV) target Redundant since additional stimulus doesn’t provide any additional information
what are the two models of redundant target effects?
- Statistical facilitation - independent (parallel)
processing - Neural coactivation - integrated signals
Redundant Targets Effect-
Statistical Facilitation
Both elements of AV stim processed along
independent channels
• One that reaches output stage first triggers
response
• On average, the time of the winner will be less than
the time for either racer
Redundant Targets Effect-
Neural Coactivation
Both components of a redundant signal influence
response on a single trial
• Activation from different channels combine in
satisfying a single criterion for response initiation -
activation builds over time until some criterion is
reached
• Activation builds faster when provided by two
sources rather than one
what is the purpose of redundant target effects?
• responses to redundant signals are too fast to be
explained as the faster of two responses to
individual signals
• The easiest way to explain the speed of responses
to redundant signals is to assume that signals
jointly contribute to the process of producing the
response
• Neural Coactivation - MSI
MSI – Key Issue
Sensory environment is complex – there are
multiple sources in each modality – eg lots of visual
objects and lots of sounds
• Key function of MSI dissociate between stimuli
from different sources and single source
Factors Influencing MSI
- Temporal Coincidence
- Spatial Coincidence
- Temporal patterning
- Crossmodal correspondence
- Stored knowledge
- Context
- Recent experience
- Expectation
- Attention
Factors Influencing MSI- bottom up and subjective
Temporal Coincidence
• Spatial Coincidence
• Temporal patterning
Factors Influencing MSI- top-down and subjective
- Stored knowledge
- Context
- Recent experience
- Expectation
- Attention
Bottom-up Factors
Temporal Coincidence – things that happen at the same
time
• Spatial Coincidence – things that happen at the same
place
• Temporal patterning – things that are correlated over
time
Strong cues that stimuli were caused by the same event
and so belong together
Top-down Factors
Information that is already present in our brain
influences how crossmodal signals are combined
• Stored knowledge
• Recent experience
• Context
• Expectation
• Attention
Top-down: Context
Stream-bounce; 3 blocks of 200 trials each Block 1 – all no sound Block 2 – mixed sound/no sound Block 3 – all no sound
Top-down: Expectation
When are cognitive influences (eg previous response, overall
presence of the tone) impacting
Does expectation lead to an early decision or bias?
Typical S/B – observe entire motion sequence then provide
response – subjective
Want to see how percept evolves