The representation of space near the body through touch and vision
Section snippets
Overview: links between vision and touch in near body space
In our daily life we interact with a multitude of events that occur in the world around us. While the somatosensory modality is critical to monitor the physical contact between our body and external objects, the visual modality promptly acquires information about events occurring in external space, prior to any impact with the body. The link between these two sensory modalities is critical when we are called to react to external stimuli, either by avoiding or by grasping them. A few years ago,
Possible neuronal basis for spatial interactions between touch and vision
Sensory signals in the different modalities are initially processed in anatomically segregated areas of the cortex. Tactile inputs activate somatosensory regions in the post-central gyrus (“area F” in Fig. 1A), where the body surface is represented in an orderly manner (Disbrow et al., 2000, Kurth et al., 1998). Analogously, within the occipital visual cortex (“area E” in Fig. 1A), visual responses follow a well-ordered organization corresponding to the stimulated position on the retina. These
Multisensory mechanisms of visuo-tactile spatial attention control
The finding of multimodal visuo-tactile responses in associative fronto-parietal areas that are known to play a key role in spatial attention control (e.g. see Corbetta & Shulman, 2002, for a review) may explain some of classical behavioral findings showing crossmodal links in spatial attention. In this section we will consider behavioral paradigms and neuroimaging findings associated with covert orienting of visual and tactile spatial attention towards locations near the body. First we present
Crossmodal effects of touch in the visual cortex
Together with multisensory effects in associative regions in the frontal, parietal and temporal cortex, both endogenous and stimulus-driven paradigms that manipulated visual and tactile spatial attention also revealed crossmodal influences of touch in occipital visual areas. Influences of non-visual stimuli in the visual cortex have been demonstrated in several different contexts, including audio-visual speech perception (Calvert, Campbell, & Brammer, 2000), audio-visual illusions (Bushara et
Remapping of visuo-tactile space: how visuo-tactile interactions are maintained through changes of body posture
A central issue about space perception across modalities and crossmodal spatial interactions between touch and vision relates to the frames of reference that the different sensory systems use to code for stimulus location. The position of tactile stimuli is initially coded in a body-centered frame of reference (Sur, Nelson, & Kaas, 1982), while visual stimuli are represented retinotopically (Tootell, Silverman, Switkes, & De Valois, 1982). Thus the computation of the position of a tactile
Viewing body parts can affect somatosensory processing
A special stimulus that typically appears in the visual space around us is our own body. We are often exposed to the vision of our own limbs moving around in space when grasping, manipulating, or avoiding objects in the peripersonal space. There is a rich body of evidence showing that the passive vision of a limb can exert relevant crossmodal effects on touch perception, as compared to other non-bodily visual stimuli. First, it has been shown that the vision of a tactually stimulated body part
Dynamic modulation of the visuo-tactile interactions following tool-use
As discussed so far, there is a rich body of evidence pointing to the critical role of integrating spatially and temporally congruent visuo-tactile input for efficient stimulus processing and selection in peripersonal space. As previously mentioned, this importance of near space for visuo-tactile integration is a function of the body–object interactions occurring in this space. This functional explanation of the multisensory properties of peripersonal space is strongly supported by recent
Summary and conclusions
In this review we have examined some of the mechanisms that allow signals from touch and vision to combine in order to build a coherent representation of space around the body. We have highlighted spatial constraints to the integration of visuo-tactile space and to the attentional selection of relevant locations near the body. At the same time, experiments on passive viewing of limbs and studies on tool-use demonstrate that visuo-tactile interactions can be flexible, emphasizing the importance
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