Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Multisensory integration
Summary
Multisensory integration, also known as multimodal integration, is the study of how information from the different sensory modalities (such as sight, sound, touch, smell, self-motion, and taste) may be integrated by the nervous system. A coherent representation of objects combining modalities enables animals to have meaningful perceptual experiences. Indeed, multisensory integration is central to adaptive behavior because it allows animals to perceive a world of coherent perceptual entities. Multisensory integration also deals with how different sensory modalities interact with one another and alter each other's processing.
Multimodal perception is how animals form coherent, valid, and robust perception by processing sensory stimuli from various modalities. Surrounded by multiple objects and receiving multiple sensory stimulations, the brain is faced with the decision of how to categorize the stimuli resulting from different objects or events in the physical world. The nervous system is thus responsible for whether to integrate or segregate certain groups of signals. Multimodal perception has been widely studied in cognitive science, behavioral science, and neuroscience.
There are four attributes of stimulus: modality, intensity, location, and duration. The neocortex in the mammalian brain has parcellations that primarily process sensory input from one modality. For example, primary visual area, V1, or primary somatosensory area, S1. These areas mostly deal with low-level stimulus features such as brightness, orientation, intensity, etc. These areas have extensive connections to each other as well as to higher association areas that further process the stimuli and are believed to integrate sensory input from various modalities. However, recently multisensory effects have been shown to occur in primary sensory areas as well.
Binding problem
The relationship between the binding problem and multisensory perception can be thought of as a question – the binding problem, and potential solution – multisensory perception.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Related publications (120)
Related concepts (22)
Multisensory integration
Multisensory integration, also known as multimodal integration, is the study of how information from the different sensory modalities (such as sight, sound, touch, smell, self-motion, and taste) may be integrated by the nervous system. A coherent representation of objects combining modalities enables animals to have meaningful perceptual experiences. Indeed, multisensory integration is central to adaptive behavior because it allows animals to perceive a world of coherent perceptual entities.
Sense
A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the world through the detection of stimuli. Although in some cultures five human senses were traditionally identified as such (namely sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing), it is now recognized that there are many more. Senses used by non-human organisms are even greater in variety and number. During sensation, sense organs collect various stimuli (such as a sound or smell) for transduction, meaning transformation into a form that can be understood by the brain.
Visual perception
Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the visible spectrum reflected by objects in the environment. This is different from visual acuity, which refers to how clearly a person sees (for example "20/20 vision"). A person can have problems with visual perceptual processing even if they have 20/20 vision.
Related courses (5)
BIO-483: Neuroscience: behavior and cognition
The goal is to guide students into the essential topics of Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience. The challenge for the student in this course is to integrate the diverse knowledge acquired from those
EE-623: Perception and learning from multimodal sensors
The course will cover different aspects of multimodal processing (complementarity vs redundancy; alignment and synchrony; fusion), with an emphasis on the analysis of people, behaviors and interaction
NX-423: Translational neuroengineering
This course integrates knowledge in basic, systems, clinical and computational neuroscience, and engineering with the goal of translating this integrated knowledge into the development of novel method
Related lectures (31)
Kinesthetic and Tactile Rehabilitation
Explores touch, proprioception, cutaneous receptors, psychophysics, haptic illusions, sensory substitution, and somatic feedback in rehabilitation.
Neuromodulation and Spinal Cord Control
Explores neuromodulation, spinal cord control, and the potential for recovery after spinal cord injury through innovative research and groundbreaking results.
Virtual Reality: Immersion and Presence
Delves into Immersive Virtual Reality, Telepresence, and their cognitive foundations, exploring their impact on perception and action.