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The Journal of Neuroscience, August 8, 2007, 27(32):8525-8532; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0737-07.2007

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Fusion of Visual and Auditory Stimuli during Saccades: A Bayesian Explanation for Perisaccadic Distortions

Paola Binda,^1,2 Aurelio Bruno,^1,3 David C. Burr,^4,5 and Maria C. Morrone^1,6

¹Department of Psychology, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, 20132 Milan, Italy, ²Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, 16163 Genova, Italy, ³Department of Psychology, University College London, London WC1E, United Kingdom, ⁴Department of Psychology, Università Degli Studi di Firenze, 89 Florence, Italy, ⁵Department of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Nedlands Perth, Western Australia, Australia, and ⁶Istituto Nazionale di Neuroscienze, 20132 Milan, Italy

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. David Burr, Department of Psychology, Università Degli Studi di Firenze, 89 Florence, Italy. Email: dave{at}in.cnr.it

Brief stimuli presented near the onset of saccades are grossly mislocalized in space. In this study, we investigated whether the Bayesian hypothesis of optimal sensory fusion could account for the mislocalization. We required subjects to localize visual, auditory, and audiovisual stimuli at the time of saccades (compared with an earlier presented target). During fixation, vision dominates and spatially "captures" the auditory stimulus (the ventriloquist effect). But for perisaccadic presentations, auditory localization becomes more important, so the mislocalized visual stimulus is seen closer to its veridical position. The precision of the bimodal localization (as measured by localization thresholds or just-noticeable difference) was better than either the visual or acoustic stimulus presented in isolation. Both the perceived position of the bimodal stimuli and the improved precision were well predicted by assuming statistically optimal Bayesian-like combination of visual and auditory signals. Furthermore, the time course of localization was well predicted by the Bayesian approach. We present a detailed model that simulates the time-course data, assuming that perceived position is given by the sum of retinal position and a sluggish noisy eye-position signal, obtained by integrating optimally the output of two populations of neural activity: one centered at the current point of gaze, the other centered at the future point of gaze.

Key words: vision; saccades; cross-modal fusion; Bayesian analysis; audition; psychophysics

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Received Feb. 17, 2007; revised June 22, 2007; accepted June 22, 2007.

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. David Burr, Department of Psychology, Università Degli Studi di Firenze, 89 Florence, Italy. Email: dave{at}in.cnr.it

Related articles in J. Neurosci.:

Reinforcing the Weight Attributed to Auditory Space across Saccades

Olivier Collignon
J. Neurosci. 2007 27: 12438-12439. [Full Text]  

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				O. Collignon Reinforcing the Weight Attributed to Auditory Space across Saccades J. Neurosci., November 14, 2007; 27(46): 12438 - 12439. [Full Text] [PDF]

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