Abstract
To organize the plethora of sensory signals from our environment into a coherent percept, our brain relies on the processes of multisensory integration and sensory recalibration. We here asked how visuo-proprioceptive integration and recalibration are shaped by the presence of more than one visual stimulus, hence paving the way to study multisensory perception under more naturalistic settings with multiple signals per sensory modality. We used a cursor-control task in which proprioceptive information on the endpoint of a reaching movement was complemented by two visual stimuli providing additional information on the movement endpoint. The visual stimuli were briefly shown, one synchronously with the hand reaching the movement endpoint, the other delayed. In Experiment 1, the judgments of hand movement endpoint revealed integration and recalibration biases oriented towards the position of the synchronous stimulus and away from the delayed one. In Experiment 2 we contrasted two alternative accounts: that only the temporally more proximal visual stimulus enters integration similar to a winner-takes-all process, or that the influences of both stimuli superpose. The proprioceptive biases revealed that integration—and likely also recalibration—are shaped by the superposed contributions of multiple stimuli rather than by only the most powerful individual one.
Highlights
To organize the plethora of sensory signals from our environment into a coherent percept, our brain relies on the processes of multisensory integration and sensory recalibration
Twenty participants performed out-and-back hand movements whereby visual stimuli could be presented on a monitor, their position being related to the endpoint of the hand movement as mapped onto the monitor frame of reference
Vsynch and Vdelay were presented with opposite spatial offsets relative to the movement endpoint, as illustrated in Fig. 1b, c; for instance, if Vsynch had an offset of − 6°, Vdelay would follow with + 6° offset
Summary
To organize the plethora of sensory signals from our environment into a coherent percept, our brain relies on the processes of multisensory integration and sensory recalibration. We here asked how visuo-proprioceptive integration and recalibration are shaped by the presence of more than one visual stimulus, paving the way to study multisensory perception under more naturalistic settings with multiple signals per sensory modality. We investigated the combination of visuo-proprioceptive position information in a cursor-control task: participants made out-and-back movements in a semi-circular workspace with visual feedback provided on a monitor, and subsequently judged the most outward position of their unseen hand (‘movement endpoint’). This task has served as a versatile paradigm to study both integration (e.g.,6,7) and recalibration (e.g.,8–10). Recalibration: a ‘winner-takes-all principle’, whereby only one visual stimulus influences proprioceptive judgments of the hand position, and a ‘superposition principle’, whereby the influences of both visual stimuli are summed
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