Abstract
We adapted the crossmodal dynamic capture task to investigate the modulation of visuotactile crossmodal integration by unimodal visual perceptual grouping. The influence of finger posture on this interaction was also explored. Participants were required to judge the direction of a tactile apparent motion stream (moving either to the left or to the right) presented to their crossed or uncrossed index fingers. The participants were instructed to ignore a distracting visual apparent motion stream, comprised of either 2 or 6 lights presented concurrently with the tactile stimuli. More crossmodal dynamic capture of the direction of the tactile apparent motion stream by the visual apparent motion stream was observed in the 2-lights condition than in the 6-lights condition. This interaction was not modulated by finger posture. These results suggest that visual intramodal perceptual grouping constrains the crossmodal binding of visual and tactile apparent motion information, irrespective of finger posture.
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Notes
It should be noted that physical synchrony does not necessarily correspond to perceptual synchrony. Although the visuotactile stimuli used in our study were temporally coincident upon presentation, the processing time taken for visual and tactile cues presented on the body surface to reach the brain differs significantly (e.g., Harrar and Harris 2005; Spence and Squire 2003). However, a recent study by Harrar and Harris apparently demonstrated complete compensation for the difference in processing times when simultaneous visual and tactile information were presented on the hand, so that simultaneity was veridically perceived, reflecting, they argued, “a form of simultaneity constancy”. The subjective reports of participants in the pilot trials of the present experiment were also of perceptual synchrony between the central pairings of visuotactile stimuli.
We also analysed the logarithmically transformed accuracy data in order to address the concern that the use of direct proportion scores in parametric statistical tests may lead to an overestimation of significance values in certain situations, due to the artificially reduced variability found when accuracy scores fall close to 0 or 1 (see Sanabria et al. 2005a, b). However, in the present study, the pattern of statistical results obtained using the transformed data was identical to that derived from the untransformed accuracy data. Therefore, for ease of understanding, the data in the text and figures is described in terms of percentages of correct responses.
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Acknowledgments
G. Lyons was supported by the University of Melbourne and A.V. was supported by a Newton Abraham Studentship from the Medical Sciences Division, University of Oxford. Correspondence regarding this report should be directed to either Georgina Lyons or Charles Spence, Department of Experimental Psychology, South Parks Road, OX1 3UD, Oxford, UK. E-mail: g.lyons2@ugrad.unimelb.edu.au or charles.spence@psy.ox.ac.uk.
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Lyons, G., Sanabria, D., Vatakis, A. et al. The modulation of crossmodal integration by unimodal perceptual grouping: a visuotactile apparent motion study. Exp Brain Res 174, 510–516 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-006-0485-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-006-0485-8