Auditory motion affects visual biological motion processing.

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_6ACED39F9C20
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Auditory motion affects visual biological motion processing.
Journal
Neuropsychologia
Author(s)
Brooks A., van der Zwan R., Billard A., Petreska B., Clarke S., Blanke O.
ISSN
0028-3932 (Print)
ISSN-L
0028-3932
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2007
Volume
45
Number
3
Pages
523-530
Language
english
Notes
Publication types: Journal Article
Publication Status: ppublish
Abstract
The processing of biological motion is a critical, everyday task performed with remarkable efficiency by human sensory systems. Interest in this ability has focused to a large extent on biological motion processing in the visual modality (see, for example, Cutting, J. E., Moore, C., & Morrison, R. (1988). Masking the motions of human gait. Perception and Psychophysics, 44(4), 339-347). In naturalistic settings, however, it is often the case that biological motion is defined by input to more than one sensory modality. For this reason, here in a series of experiments we investigate behavioural correlates of multisensory, in particular audiovisual, integration in the processing of biological motion cues. More specifically, using a new psychophysical paradigm we investigate the effect of suprathreshold auditory motion on perceptions of visually defined biological motion. Unlike data from previous studies investigating audiovisual integration in linear motion processing [Meyer, G. F. & Wuerger, S. M. (2001). Cross-modal integration of auditory and visual motion signals. Neuroreport, 12(11), 2557-2560; Wuerger, S. M., Hofbauer, M., & Meyer, G. F. (2003). The integration of auditory and motion signals at threshold. Perception and Psychophysics, 65(8), 1188-1196; Alais, D. & Burr, D. (2004). No direction-specific bimodal facilitation for audiovisual motion detection. Cognitive Brain Research, 19, 185-194], we report the existence of direction-selective effects: relative to control (stationary) auditory conditions, auditory motion in the same direction as the visually defined biological motion target increased its detectability, whereas auditory motion in the opposite direction had the inverse effect. Our data suggest these effects do not arise through general shifts in visuo-spatial attention, but instead are a consequence of motion-sensitive, direction-tuned integration mechanisms that are, if not unique to biological visual motion, at least not common to all types of visual motion. Based on these data and evidence from neurophysiological and neuroimaging studies we discuss the neural mechanisms likely to underlie this effect.
Keywords
Acoustic Stimulation/methods, Adult, Analysis of Variance, Auditory Perception/physiology, Discrimination (Psychology), Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Motion, Motion Perception/physiology, Photic Stimulation/methods, Psychophysics/methods, Reaction Time/physiology
Pubmed
Web of science
Create date
26/01/2009 8:48
Last modification date
20/08/2019 15:25
Usage data