Modulation of auditory motion processing by visual motion: Early cross-modal interactions in human auditory cortices.

Neurophysiological findings suggested that auditory and visual motion information is integrated at an early stage of auditory cortical processing, already starting in primary auditory cortex. Here, the effect of visual motion on processing of auditory motion was investigated by employing electrotomography in combination with free-field sound motion. A delayed-motion paradigm was used in which the onset of motion was delayed relative to the onset of an initially stationary stimulus. The results indicated that activity related to the motion-onset response, a neurophysiological correlate of auditory motion processing, interacts with the processing of visual motion at quite early stages of auditory analysis in the dimensions of both the time and the location of cortical processing. A modulation of auditory motion processing by concurrent visual motion was found already around 170 ms after motion onset (cN1 component) in the regions of primary auditory cortex and posterior superior temporal gyrus: Incongruent visual motion enhanced the auditory motion onset response in auditory regions ipsilateral to the sound motion stimulus, thus reducing the pattern of contralaterality observed with unimodal auditory stimuli. No modulation was found in parietal cortex nor around 250 ms after motion onset (cP2 component) in any auditory region of interest. These findings may reflect the integration of auditory and visual motion information in low-level areas of the auditory cortical system at re...
Source: Journal of Psychophysiology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Source Type: research