Mental Imagery Induces Cross-Modal Sensory Plasticity and Changes Future Auditory Perception

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 926-935 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher C. Berger ◽  
H. Henrik Ehrsson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Multisensory Integration ◽  
Visual Stimulus ◽  
Auditory Perception ◽  
Continuous Process ◽  
Sensory Stimuli ◽  
Sensory Plasticity ◽  
The World ◽  
Ventriloquism Aftereffect ◽  
The Senses

Can what we imagine in our minds change how we perceive the world in the future? A continuous process of multisensory integration and recalibration is responsible for maintaining a correspondence between the senses (e.g., vision, touch, audition) and, ultimately, a stable and coherent perception of our environment. This process depends on the plasticity of our sensory systems. The so-called ventriloquism aftereffect—a shift in the perceived localization of sounds presented alone after repeated exposure to spatially mismatched auditory and visual stimuli—is a clear example of this type of plasticity in the audiovisual domain. In a series of six studies with 24 participants each, we investigated an imagery-induced ventriloquism aftereffect in which imagining a visual stimulus elicits the same frequency-specific auditory aftereffect as actually seeing one. These results demonstrate that mental imagery can recalibrate the senses and induce the same cross-modal sensory plasticity as real sensory stimuli.

Multisensory Integration

2008 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 989-997 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.E. Lugo ◽  
R. Doti ◽  
Walter Wittich ◽  
Jocelyn Faubert
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Peripheral Nervous System ◽  
Multisensory Integration ◽  
Visual Stimulus ◽  
Lower Leg ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
The Senses ◽  
The Brain

Multisensory integration in humans is thought to be essentially a brain phenomenon, but theories are silent as to the possible involvement of the peripheral nervous system. We provide evidence that this approach is insufficient. We report novel tactile-auditory and tactilevisual interactions in humans, demonstrating that a facilitating sound or visual stimulus that is exactly synchronous with an excitatory tactile signal presented at the lower leg increases the peripheral representation of that excitatory signal. These results demonstrate that during multisensory integration, the brain not only continuously binds information obtained from the senses, but also acts directly on that information by modulating activity at peripheral levels. We also discuss a theoretical framework to explain this novel interaction.

TASTING LICHFIELD, TOUCHING CHINA: SIR JOHN FLOYER'S SENSES

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 647-670 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK S. R. JENNER
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Stimuli ◽  
The World ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Cultural Historiography ◽  
Therapeutic Possibilities

ABSTRACTRecent years have seen the growth of a new and newly self-conscious cultural historiography of the senses. This article extends and critiques this literature through a case study of the sensory work and worlds of Sir John Floyer, a physician active in Lichfield during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Floyer is best known for his work on pulse-taking, something which he described as contributing to the art of feeling. Less well known is his first book – a discussion of the tastes of the world and their therapeutic possibilities. The article explicates, contextualizes, and relates these two books and uses this analysis to suggest ways of refining and developing the wider historiography of the senses. It demonstrates how they reveal that what Floyer sensed was closely bound up with the changing ways in which he sensed, particularly when he began feeling the pulse in a ‘Chinese’ style. This, the article concludes, suggests that historians of the senses need fundamentally to reconsider the model of culture which underpins their work, focusing less on the ways in which people have interpreted or ordered sensory stimuli, and rather analysing the senses as forms of skill or dynamic ways of engaging with the world.

Non-Taster: A Photo Essay About a Loss of Taste and Breakfast

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-153
Author(s):  
Burong Zeng
Keyword(s):  
Food Packaging ◽  
The World ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Immigrant Experience ◽  
Scanned Images ◽  
Photo Essay

Non-taster is a photo essay exploring the elusive connections between the change of taste and the immigrant experience based on my story of losing taste at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. The world, which used to be dirty, viscous, and alive has rapidly become hygienic, distanced, and virtual. I documented the packaging and food sauce for breakfast via a series of scanned images and photographs during the second and third lockdown in London. The photos of spicy sauce and food packaging reveal the desire to reconnect with the senses. Alongside apathy, nostalgia, and homesickness, Non-taster laments the changes of the senses and desires in the post-pandemic period.

The Effects of Cue Reliability on Crossmodal Recalibration in Adults and Children

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Sophie Rohlf ◽  
Patrick Bruns ◽  
Brigitte Röder
Keyword(s):  
Multisensory Integration ◽  
Sound Localization ◽  
Visual Stimulus ◽  
Cue Combination ◽  
Single Exposure ◽  
Visual Cue ◽  
Cue Reliability ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
Ventriloquist Effect

Abstract Reliability-based cue combination is a hallmark of multisensory integration, while the role of cue reliability for crossmodal recalibration is less understood. The present study investigated whether visual cue reliability affects audiovisual recalibration in adults and children. Participants had to localize sounds, which were presented either alone or in combination with a spatially discrepant high- or low-reliability visual stimulus. In a previous study we had shown that the ventriloquist effect (indicating multisensory integration) was overall larger in the children groups and that the shift in sound localization toward the spatially discrepant visual stimulus decreased with visual cue reliability in all groups. The present study replicated the onset of the immediate ventriloquist aftereffect (a shift in unimodal sound localization following a single exposure of a spatially discrepant audiovisual stimulus) at the age of 6–7 years. In adults the immediate ventriloquist aftereffect depended on visual cue reliability, whereas the cumulative ventriloquist aftereffect (reflecting the audiovisual spatial discrepancies over the complete experiment) did not. In 6–7-year-olds the immediate ventriloquist aftereffect was independent of visual cue reliability. The present results are compatible with the idea of immediate and cumulative crossmodal recalibrations being dissociable processes and that the immediate ventriloquist aftereffect is more closely related to genuine multisensory integration.

scholarly journals Multisensory Integration in the Superior Colliculus of the Alert Cat

1998 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 1006-1010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark T. Wallace ◽  
M. Alex Meredith ◽  
Barry E. Stein
Keyword(s):  
Superior Colliculus ◽  
Multisensory Integration ◽  
Sensory Response ◽  
Functional Link ◽  
Sensory Stimuli ◽  
Response Properties ◽  
Alert Cat

Wallace, Mark T., M. Alex Meredith, and Barry E. Stein. Multisensory integration in the superior colliculus of the alert cat. J. Neurophysiol. 80: 1006–1010, 1998. The modality convergence patterns, sensory response properties, and principles governing multisensory integration in the superior colliculus (SC) of the alert cat were found to have fundamental similarities to those in anesthetized animals. Of particular interest was the observation that, in a manner indistinguishable from the anesthetized animal, combinations of two different sensory stimuli significantly enhanced the responses of SC neurons above those evoked by either unimodal stimulus. These observations are consistent with the speculation that there is a functional link among multisensory integration in individual SC neurons and cross-modality attentive and orientation behaviors.

scholarly journals Synesthesia: From Cross-Modal to Modality-Free Learning and Knowledge

Leonardo ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Williams ◽  
Simone Gumtau ◽  
Jenny Mackness
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Perception And Action ◽  
Action Learning ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Learning Design ◽  
Autistic Spectrum ◽  
Enactive Perception ◽  
The World ◽  
Innovative Learning ◽  
The Senses

In an integrated view of perception and action, learning involves all the senses, their interaction and cross-modality, rather than multi-modality alone. This can be referred to as synesthetic enactive perception, which forms the basis for more abstract, modality-free knowledge and a potential underpinning for innovative learning design. The authors explore this mode of learning in two case studies: The first focuses on children in Montessori preschools and the second on MEDIATE, an interactive space designed for children on the autistic spectrum that offers a “whole-body” engagement with the world.

King Leur: A Psychological Study

1859 ◽  
Vol 5 (29) ◽  
pp. 301-348
Author(s):  
J. C. B.
Keyword(s):  
Deep Foundations ◽  
Very Old ◽  
Psychological Study ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Moral Personality ◽  
The World ◽  
Single Moment ◽  
Small Gauge ◽  
Mountain Summit ◽  
The Senses

Aye, every inch a King, in all his pompous vanity, his reckless passion, his unstable judgment, a thorough king, whom even madness could not dethrone from the royal habits of authority, of strenuous will, and of proud predominance. As the highest mountain summit becomes the fearful beacon of volcanic flame, testifying in lurid characters to the world's deep heart-throes, so this kingliest of minds—he who in his little world has been the summit and the cope of things—becomes, in the creative hand of the poet, the visible outlet of those forces which devastate the soul. We stand by in reverential awe, despairing, with our small gauge of criticism, to estimate the forces of this human Etna. Oppressed by the power and magnitude of the passions, as depicted in this most sublime and awful of poetic creations, it is only after the senses have become accustomed to the roar and turmoil that we throw off the stupor, and dare to look down upon the throes of the Titan, and begin to recognize the distinctive features of the fierce commotion. Even then we must stand afar off; for not in Lear, as in others of the poet's great characters, can one for a single moment perform the act of mental transmutation. In Hamlet, for instance, the most complex of all, many a man may see reflected the depths of his own soul. But Lear is more and less than human in its isolated grandeur, in the force and depths of its passions, in its abstraction from accidental qualities. In the breadth of his strength and weakness he is painted like one of those old gods, older and greater than the heathen representatives of small virtues and vices—the usurping vulgarities of polytheism. The true divinities of Lear were old, like himself very old and kingly—Saturn and Rhea, the autochthones of the heavens; even as his qualities are laid upon the dark and far off, yet solid and deep foundations of moral personality. Well might this King of sorrows exclaim, in the words of the World-spirit, to those who attempt to tear his passions to tatters before the footlights; yea, even to the more reverent efforts of critics— “Du gleichst dem Geist den du begreifst, Nicht mir!”

scholarly journals The configuration of happiness and unhappiness as part of the auditory landscape: the work of Albert Camus

Cahiers ERTA ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 57-79
Author(s):  
Sofia Chatzipetrou
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Auditory Perception ◽  
Albert Camus ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Field Recording ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Symbolic Universe

This essay aims to analyze the poetics of the soundscape in Albert Camus’ work, based in the notions of happiness and unhappiness. Our purpose will be to define the characteristics of the symbolism of auditory perception, which are elaborated on the double configuration between happiness and unhappiness. The fact that the symbolic universe of Camus outlines a total sensory experience does no longer need to be demonstrated. Starting from his first lyrical writings to the Notebooks, his writing appeals arouses all the senses. Through a comparative study of examples relating to happiness and unhappiness and while underlining the predominant place of silence in Camus’ aesthetics, we will come off to the conclusion that Camus’s work constitutes a real kind of field recording.

scholarly journals AVIADANDO O CURRÍCULO: INDENTIDADE/REPRESENTAÇÃO, GAY, CORPO E POLITICA PÚBLICA.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 229
Author(s):  
Antonio Santos Carvalho dos Santos Junior ◽  
Janaina Guimarães da Silva
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Paulo Freire ◽  
Liberation Movement ◽  
The World ◽  
Politica Publica ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Gay Identities ◽  
Theoretical Reflection

RESUMOOs debates em educação necessitam cada vez mais de concepções pedagógicas que emanem do movimento de libertação das oprimidas e dos oprimidos, assim como apregoava o professor Paulo Freire. Isso significa que é preciso realizar o ato educacional na aproximação dos sentidos elaborados pelos sujeitos participantes das dinâmicas pedagógicas, respeitando e potencializando suas identidades no movimento de busca do ser mais no/com o mundo. É preciso sentir o cheiro daqueles/as que conosco participam da construção das aprendizagens, que devem ser instrumentos políticos que re/elaborem nossa presença no mundo. É nesse sentido que este artigo reflete teoricamente acerca da necessidade da construção de currículos que respeitem as identidades gays elaboradas fora e dentro da escola; construídas pelos corpos que, com seus gestos, inscrevem sua presença no mundo e com isso também suscitam políticas públicas para esses sujeitos.Palavras-chave: Currículo. Políticas Públicas. Gays.ABSTRACTDebates on education increasingly require pedagogical conceptions emanating from the liberation movement of the oppressed and oppressed, as Paulo Freire proclaimed. This means that it is necessary to carry out the educational act in the approximation of the senses elaborated by the subjects participating in the pedagogical dynamics, respecting and potentializing their identities in the search movement of being more in / with the world. It is necessary to feel the smell of those who participate with us in the construction of learning, which must be political instruments that re-elaborate our presence in the world. It is in this sense that this article is made as a theoretical reflection about the need to construct curricula that respect the gay identities elaborated outside and within the school; constructed by the bodies that with their gestures, inscribe their presence in the world and, with this, also raise of public policies for these subjects.Keywords: Curriculum. Public policy. Gay.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document