Merging the senses into a robust percept

Ernst, Marc O.; Bülthoff, HH

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2004.02.002

Cited by 1,566 publications

(1,308 citation statements)

References 53 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

1,193

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Following the same line of reasoning as for the disambiguating capacity of spatiotemporal context, sensory information may likely be integrated over multiple modalities to resolve ambiguities that arise within a unimodal processing stream. The rapidly growing body of research on crossmodal interactions with unambiguous, yet noisy, stimuli supports this view, suggesting that disambiguation of unreliable sensory information is a primary purpose of crossmodal interactions [57]. While perceptual choices for ambiguous stimuli in different sensory modalities can occur independently [2], there have been many reports of crossmodal contextual influences of unambiguous sensory information on the perception of otherwise ambiguous stimuli.…”

Section: Crossmodal Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

United we sense, divided we fail: context-driven perception of ambiguous visual stimuli

Klink

Wezel

2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ambiguous visual stimuli provide the brain with sensory information that contains conflicting evidence for multiple mutually exclusive interpretations. Two distinct aspects of the phenomenological experience associated with viewing ambiguous visual stimuli are the apparent stability of perception whenever one perceptual interpretation is dominant, and the instability of perception that causes perceptual dominance to alternate between perceptual interpretations upon extended viewing. This review summarizes several ways in which contextual information can help the brain resolve visual ambiguities and construct temporarily stable perceptual experiences. Temporal context through prior stimulation or internal brain states brought about by feedback from higher cortical processing levels may alter the response characteristics of specific neurons involved in rivalry resolution. Furthermore, spatial or crossmodal context may strengthen the neuronal representation of one of the possible perceptual interpretations and consequently bias the rivalry process towards it. We suggest that contextual influences on perceptual choices with ambiguous visual stimuli can be highly informative about the neuronal mechanisms of context-driven inference in the general processes of perceptual decision-making.

show abstract

Section: Crossmodal Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

United we sense, divided we fail: context-driven perception of ambiguous visual stimuli

Klink

Wezel

2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…ventriloquism, (Alais and Burr, 2004;Lewald and Guski, 2003;Slutsky and Recanzone, 2001)) well accounted for by Bayesian models of multisensory integration (Alais and Burr, 2004;Burr and Alais, 2006;Ernst and Bülthoff, 2004;Witten and Knudsen, 2005). More generally, vision tends to be most reliable in encoding spatial cues whereas audition provides the most reliable temporal cues.…”

Section: Phase Of Neural Oscillations: Encoding Time (Or Space?)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Encoding of event timing in the phase of neural oscillations

2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f oTime perception is a critical component of conscious experience. To be in synchrony with the environment, the brain must deal not only with differences in the speed of light and sound but also with its computational and neural transmission delays. Here, we asked whether the brain could actively compensate for temporal delays by changing its processing time. Specifically, can changes in neural timing or in the phase of neural oscillation index perceived timing? For this, a lag-adaptation paradigm was used to manipulate participants' perceived audiovisual (AV) simultaneity of events while they were recorded with magnetoencephalography (MEG). Desynchronized AV stimuli were presented rhythmically to elicit a robust 1 Hz frequency-tagging of auditory and visual cortical responses. As participants' perception of AV simultaneity shifted, systematic changes in the phase of entrained neural oscillations were observed. This suggests that neural entrainment is not a passive response and that the entrained neural oscillation shifts in time. Crucially, our results indicate that shifts in neural timing in auditory cortices linearly map participants' perceived AV simultaneity. To our knowledge, these results provide the first mechanistic evidence for active neural compensation in the encoding of sensory event timing in support of the emergence of time awareness.

show abstract

“…The temporal compression observed under intentional (or causal) binding could then be explained as an instance of the more general phenomenon of multisensory integration, which involves the merging of cues from different modalities into a single percept (Ernst & Bülthoff, 2004). This occurs only within a small temporal window around simultaneity, often called the temporal window of integration (Shams et al, 2002;Bresciani et al, 2005).…”

Section: Visuomotor Temporal Recalibration and Intentional Bindingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This means that, at least theoretically, the IE procedure may capture the distribution underlying recalibration of TOJs. Also, it has been shown that multisensory integration usually involves the loss of access to the uni-sensory estimates (Ernst & Bülthoff, 2004). It seems possible and plausible that this would lead to a compressive bias around simultaneity in the registration of SOAs already.…”

Section: Models Of Time Perception and The Window Of Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asymmetries in visuomotor recalibration of time perception: Does causal binding distort the window of integration?

2014

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The recalibration of perceived visuomotor simultaneity to vision-lead and movement-lead temporal discrepancies is marked by an underlying causal asymmetry; a lagging visual stimulus may be interpreted as causally linked sensory feedback (intentional or causal binding), a leading visual stimulus not. Here, we test whether this underlying causal asymmetry leads to directional asymmetries in the temporal recalibration of visuomotor time perception using an interval estimation (IE) paradigm. Participants were trained to the presence of one of three temporal discrepancies between a motor action (button press) and a visual stimulus (flashed disk): 100 ms vision-lead, simultaneity, and 100 ms movement-lead. By adjusting a point on a visual scale, participants then estimated the interval between the visual stimulus and the button press over a range of discrepancies. Comparing the results across conditions, we found that temporal recalibration appears to be implemented nearly exclusively on the movement-lead side of the range of discrepancies by a uni-lateral lengthening or shortening of the window of temporal integration. Interestingly, this marked asymmetry does not lead to significantly asymmetrical recalibration of the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS) or to significant differences in discriminability. This confirms an earlier study, where we found no significant evidence for directional asymmetries in recalibration of PSS using a temporal order judgment paradigm (Rohde & Ernst, 2013). This seeming contradiction in the results (symmetrical recalibration of PSS and asymmetrical recalibration of interval estimation) casts a new light on common models of temporal order perception. Using a two-criterion model of temporal integration, we illustrate that a compressive bias around perceived simultaneity (temporal integration) prior to perceptual decisions would be very hard to detect in the probability distribution of responses. This in turn means that integration may happen even before perceptual judgments about order, simultaneity and durations are made. (Graphical abstract)Highlights:-Humans recalibrate visuomotor interval perception to the presence of temporal discrepancies. -Recalibration is asymmetrical and occurs mostly for movement-lead stimuli. -This is realized as one-sided compression or extension of the window of temporal integration. -Changes in the point of subjectivity are, by contrast, symmetrical. -A two-criterion model of temporal integration can resolve this seeming contradiction.

show abstract

Merging the senses into a robust percept

Cited by 1,566 publications

References 53 publications

United we sense, divided we fail: context-driven perception of ambiguous visual stimuli

United we sense, divided we fail: context-driven perception of ambiguous visual stimuli

Encoding of event timing in the phase of neural oscillations

Asymmetries in visuomotor recalibration of time perception: Does causal binding distort the window of integration?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About