Kinesthetic information disambiguates visual motion signals.

ABSTRACT: Numerous studies have shown that extra-retinal signals can disambiguate motion information created by movements of the eye or head. We report a new form of cross-modal sensory integration in which the kinesthetic information generated by active hand movements essentially captures ambiguous visual motion information. Several previous studies have shown that active movement can bias observers' percepts of bi-stable stimuli; however, these effects seem to be best explained by attentional mechanisms. We show that kinesthetic information can change an otherwise stable perception of motion, providing evidence of genuine fusion between visual and kinesthetic information. The experiments take advantage of the aperture problem, in which the motion of a one-dimensional grating pattern behind an aper

SUBMITTER: Hu B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2937283 | biostudies-literature | 2010 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature