Looming Signals Reveal Synergistic Principles of Multisensory Integration

Cappe, Céline; Thelen, Antonia; Romei, Vincenzo; Thut, Gregor; Murray, Micah M.

doi:10.1523/jneurosci.5517-11.2012

Cited by 97 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 83 publications

(126 reference statements)

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“…Regarding the timing of looming perception, it has been shown that harmonic sounds increasing in intensity lead to enlarged visual cortical activity as early as 80 ms from stimulus onset (15,22). Our results find looming bias reflected after 120 ms from the switch, primarily at central sites associated with auditory processing, which suggests that activation of looming bias requires higher-order processing of auditory motion.…”

Section: Perception Of Motion In Distance But Not Changes In Overall supporting

confidence: 46%

“…Whether these differences are caused by lateral or topdown processes is unclear. The processing latencies reported in previous studies appear to be inconsistent: some found multisensory enhancements in visual cortical areas at early sensory levels (80-ms postsound onset) (15,22), whereas others found no significant differences in global field strength before 600 ms (16). A more instantaneous change of distance cues (rather than gradual changes of sound intensity) might be better suited to identify the time course of auditory looming bias.…”

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confidence: 78%

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Asymmetries in behavioral and neural responses to spectral cues demonstrate the generality of auditory looming bias

Baumgartner

Reed

Tóth

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Studies of auditory looming bias have shown that sources increasing in intensity are more salient than sources decreasing in intensity. Researchers have argued that listeners are more sensitive to approaching sounds compared with receding sounds, reflecting an evolutionary pressure. However, these studies only manipulated overall sound intensity; therefore, it is unclear whether looming bias is truly a perceptual bias for changes in source distance, or only in sound intensity. Here we demonstrate both behavioral and neural correlates of looming bias without manipulating overall sound intensity. In natural environments, the pinnae induce spectral cues that give rise to a sense of externalization; when spectral cues are unnatural, sounds are perceived as closer to the listener. We manipulated the contrast of individually tailored spectral cues to create sounds of similar intensity but different naturalness. We confirmed that sounds were perceived as approaching when spectral contrast decreased, and perceived as receding when spectral contrast increased. We measured behavior and electroencephalography while listeners judged motion direction. Behavioral responses showed a looming bias in that responses were more consistent for sounds perceived as approaching than for sounds perceived as receding. In a control experiment, looming bias disappeared when spectral contrast changes were discontinuous, suggesting that perceived motion in distance and not distance itself was driving the bias. Neurally, looming bias was reflected in an asymmetry of late eventrelated potentials associated with motion evaluation. Hence, both our behavioral and neural findings support a generalization of the auditory looming bias, representing a perceptual preference for approaching auditory objects.auditory looming bias | electroencephalography | distance motion perception | sound externalization | head-related transfer functions I magine yourself alone in the wilderness. Suddenly, a threatening sound permeates the darkness. Is it approaching? This is a critical question when it comes to your survival because approaching objects usually pose a greater threat than receding objects (1). The phenomenon that approaching sounds are more salient than receding sounds is commonly termed "auditory looming bias." Looming bias is reflected in a broad variety of psychophysical tasks related to salience and alertness: bias in loudness-change estimates (2-4) and judgments of duration (5), improved discriminability of motion speed (6), underestimated distances for egocentrically moving (4) or bypassing sounds (7,8), and reduced reaction time for auditory (3, 9) and visual (3) targets preceded by looming sounds. In animals, looming biases result in faster learning speed during associative conditioning (10) and longer duration of attention (11). This list shows that looming bias triggers a variety of percepts across a wide range of psychoacoustic tasks. Despite its broad behavioral significance, the mechanisms underlying auditory looming bias are still poorly ...

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Section: Perception Of Motion In Distance But Not Changes In Overall supporting

confidence: 46%

mentioning

confidence: 78%

Asymmetries in behavioral and neural responses to spectral cues demonstrate the generality of auditory looming bias

Baumgartner

Reed

Tóth

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Studies using more naturalistic, meaningful stimuli, such as speech fragments and movie clips have indicated that semantic congruence (Cappe et al, 2012;McGurk and Macdonald, 1976;Tuomainen et al, 2005) between visual and auditory stimuli also strongly influences multisensory processing. On the basis of the latter studies, it has been argued that audio-visual speech perception is a special form of multisensory processing (Tuomainen et al, 2005;Vatakis et al, 2008).…”

Section: Question 3 How Much Does the Effect Of Attention Depend On mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Curious Incident of Attention in Multisensory Integration: Bottom-up vs. Top-down

et al. 2016

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The role attention plays in our experience of a coherent, multisensory world is still controversial. On the one hand, a subset of inputs may be selected for detailed processing and multisensory integration in a top-down manner, i.e., guidance of multisensory integration by attention. On the other hand, stimuli may be integrated in a bottom-up fashion according to low-level properties such as spatial coincidence, thereby capturing attention. Moreover, attention itself is multifaceted and can be described via both top-down and bottom-up mechanisms. Thus, the interaction between attention and multisensory integration is complex and situation-dependent. The authors of this opinion paper are researchers who have contributed to this discussion from behavioural, computational and neurophysiological perspectives. We posed a series of questions, the goal of which was to illustrate the interplay between bottom-up and top-down processes in various multisensory scenarios in order to clarify the standpoint taken by each author and with the hope of reaching a consensus. Although divergence of viewpoint emerges in the current responses, there is also considerable overlap: In general, it can be concluded that the amount of influence that attention exerts on MSI depends on the current task as * Equal contribution (ordered alphabetically). ** Equal contribution. *** To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: hartcher@isir.upmc.fr; Ruth.Adam@med.uni-muenchen.de Macaluso et al. / Multisensory Research (2016) well as prior knowledge and expectations of the observer. Moreover stimulus properties such as the reliability and salience also determine how open the processing is to influences of attention.

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“…The detection of the looming quality within multisensory stimuli results in stronger MSI across autonomic, behavioural, and neural responses when compared with stationary multisensory stimuli Spierer et al 2013;Tyll et al 2013;Cecere et al 2014;Finisguerra et al 2015). For example, visual "go/nogo" movement detection judgements are faster if the visual stimuli are accompanied by irrelevant looming sounds, compared tostationary or receding sounds, and these selective benefits are linked to early brain-response modulations within temporal, parietal, and occipital cortices as well as, notably, the amygdala (Cappe et al , 2012. These selective benefits also develop early in life in humans (Walker-Andrews and Lennon…”

Section: Stimulus-based Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The COGs (context, object, and goals) in multisensory processing

et al. 2016

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Our understanding of how perception operates in real-world environments has been substantially advanced by studying both multisensoryprocesses and "top-down" control processes influencing sensory processing via activity from higher-order brain areas, such as attention, memory, and expectations. As the two topicshave been traditionally studied separately, the mechanisms orchestrating real-world multisensory processingremain unclear.Past work has revealed that the observer's goals gate the influence of many multisensory processes on brain and behavioural responses, whereas some other multisensory processes mightoccur independently of these goals. Consequently, other forms of top-down control beyond goaldependence are necessaryto explain the full range of multisensory effects currently reported at the brain and the cognitive level. These forms of control includesensitivity to stimulus context as well as the detection of matches(or lack thereof) between a multisensory stimulus and categorical attributes of naturalistic objects (e.g. tools, animals). In this review we discuss and integrate the existing findings that demonstrate the importance of such goal-, object-and context-based top-down control over multisensory processing. We then put forward a few principles emerging from this literature review with respect to the mechanisms underlying multisensory processing, and discuss their possible broader implications. Attention, multisensory, control, object, audiovisual, brain mapping 3 Research from the past 30 years has demonstrated a whole range of behavioural benefits engendered by integrating information across the senses (multisensory integration, MSI), including faster motor responses and facilitated object recognition in noisy environments (e.g. Stein 2012). In a separate and independent manner, studies employing unisensory stimuli have been critically advancing our understanding of the nature and the importance of top-down mechanisms that control information processing. Thetopdown nature of these mechanisms lies in that they shape perceptual processing of new inputs by activating information stored in higher-order brain areas (e.g. Summerfield and Egner 2009). Key words:Studies of top-down control have traditionally focused on attentional (i.e. goaldependent)mechanisms, which promote the processing of stimulior objects in the environment that areimportant tothe current behavioural goals of the observer (e.g.Desimone and Duncan 1995). These mechanisms enhance the processing of stimuli appearing in task-relevant spatial locations and/or moments in time. These mechanisms likewise facilitate the processingof those stimuli whose attributes (e.g. colour red), feature dimensions (e.g. shape) or identity (e.g. a particular face) match the observer's goals.Simultaneously, it has been increasingly recognised in the literature that information processing issensitive to other types oftop-down processes, principally those gauged by thememory of past stimulation and one's expectations (see Figure 1A for a summar...

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Looming Signals Reveal Synergistic Principles of Multisensory Integration

Cited by 97 publications

References 83 publications

Asymmetries in behavioral and neural responses to spectral cues demonstrate the generality of auditory looming bias

Asymmetries in behavioral and neural responses to spectral cues demonstrate the generality of auditory looming bias

The Curious Incident of Attention in Multisensory Integration: Bottom-up vs. Top-down

The COGs (context, object, and goals) in multisensory processing

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