Multisensory perception: Spatial stability and temporal continuity through perceptual plasticity

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Christian Bellebaum, since 4/2018
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2015 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 283870281

How the brain unites sensory information from the various receptors into a coherent perceptual representation remains one of the unsolved mysteries in neuroscience. Despite frequent movements and the associated disruptions of the sensory input, the perceptual representation of the external world always seems continuous and stable. The plasticity of sensory experience is illustrated by surprisingly strong illusions which can drastically modify perceived space and time. The hypothesis of the present grant proposal is that this plasticity in the perception of space and time serves to combine fragmentary sensations. In the spatial domain, this question will be addressed by investigating how gaze-invariant stability is established. The transformation from a retinal into a spatiotopic reference frame shall be investigated. It will also be asked how the coordinates of visual input are remapped to be congruent with those of the tactile input. These experiments will use psychophysical adaptation and localization procedures which have proven to be an efficient tool for studying spatial perception. In the temporal domain, the question of temporal continuity across visual and tactile interruptions will be studied. Illusions in which perceived time is either compressed or stretched will be used to determine how the sensory system actively establishes temporal continuity in the perceptual stream. The experiments are guided by a model in which spatial stability and temporal continuity are actively produced by a mechanism which matches corresponding objects across visual gaps and converges their apparent position in space and time.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: France, Italy
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Salvatore Aglioti; Professor Dr. David Burr; Professor Dr. Patrick Cavanagh, Ph.D.; Dr. Benno Koch; Professorin Dr. Concetta Morrone; Professor Dr. Michael Schwarz
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Eckart Zimmermann, until 3/2018