Learning mechanisms for multisensory integration and its neural basis

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26285160
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Experimental psychology
• Research Institution: Kumamoto University (2015-2017); Muroran Institute of Technology (2014)
• Principal Investigator: Teramoto Wataru 熊本大学, 大学院人文社会科学研究部(文), 教授 (30509089)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 杉田 陽一 早稲田大学, 文学学術院, 教授 (40221311) ; 日高 聡太 立教大学, 現代心理学部, 准教授 (40581161) ; 小林 まおり 北陸先端科学技術大学院大学, 先端科学技術研究科, 研究員 (90451632)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 実験心理学 / 異種感覚統合 / 異種感覚間対応学習 / 運動知覚 / 神経基盤

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The brain has to know which sensory signals originate from the same external event in order to appropriately integrate information from different sensory modalities and obtain the stable representations of the surrounding environment. While spatiotemporal consistency is one cue to do this task, a prior knowledge acquired from everyday sensory experience (i.e. associative learning) could be another important cue. Using techniques from psychophysics and neuroscience, this study demonstrated the brain mechanisms related to associative learning between visual motion and auditory tone sequence and also showed that the brain generally uses associative learning between attributes of different sensory modalities to realize efficient multisensory binding.

Free Research Field

知覚心理学