The context of experienced sensory discrepancies shapes multisensory integration and recalibration differently

TY - JOUR

T1 - The context of experienced sensory discrepancies shapes multisensory integration and recalibration differently

AU - Park, Hame

AU - Kayser, Christoph

N1 - Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier B.V.

PY - 2022/8

Y1 - 2022/8

N2 - Whether two sensory cues interact during perceptual judgements depends not only on their immediate properties, but also the overall context in which these are encountered. While in many experiments this context is fixed, in real life multisensory perception must adapt to the momentary environment. To understand the adaptive nature of human multisensory perception we investigated spatial judgements in a ventriloquism paradigm: on different days we exposed observers to audio-visual stimuli whose discrepancy either varied over a wider (± 46°) or a narrower range (± 26°) and hypothesized that exposure to a wider range would foster the multisensory binding of these signals. Our data support this hypothesis by revealing an enhanced integration (ventriloquism) bias in the wider context. Results from Bayesian modelling suggest that this may arise from changes in the a priori integration tendency and changes in spatial attention. Interestingly, the immediate ventriloquism aftereffect, a multisensory response bias obtained following a multisensory test trial, was not affected by the contextual manipulation, although participants' confidence in their spatial judgements differed between contexts both for integration and recalibration trials. These results highlight the context-sensitivity of multisensory binding and suggest that the immediate ventriloquism aftereffect is not a purely sensory-level consequence of a previous multisensory integration process.

AB - Whether two sensory cues interact during perceptual judgements depends not only on their immediate properties, but also the overall context in which these are encountered. While in many experiments this context is fixed, in real life multisensory perception must adapt to the momentary environment. To understand the adaptive nature of human multisensory perception we investigated spatial judgements in a ventriloquism paradigm: on different days we exposed observers to audio-visual stimuli whose discrepancy either varied over a wider (± 46°) or a narrower range (± 26°) and hypothesized that exposure to a wider range would foster the multisensory binding of these signals. Our data support this hypothesis by revealing an enhanced integration (ventriloquism) bias in the wider context. Results from Bayesian modelling suggest that this may arise from changes in the a priori integration tendency and changes in spatial attention. Interestingly, the immediate ventriloquism aftereffect, a multisensory response bias obtained following a multisensory test trial, was not affected by the contextual manipulation, although participants' confidence in their spatial judgements differed between contexts both for integration and recalibration trials. These results highlight the context-sensitivity of multisensory binding and suggest that the immediate ventriloquism aftereffect is not a purely sensory-level consequence of a previous multisensory integration process.

KW - Acoustic Stimulation

KW - Auditory Perception/physiology

KW - Bayes Theorem

KW - Cues

KW - Humans

KW - Photic Stimulation

KW - Visual Perception/physiology

U2 - 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105092

DO - 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105092

M3 - SCORING: Journal article

C2 - 35306424

VL - 225

JO - COGNITION

JF - COGNITION

SN - 0010-0277

M1 - 105092

ER -