Does the motor system contribute to the perception of changes in objects visual attributes? The neural dynamics of sensory binding by action

Publication date: Available online 12 June 2019Source: NeuropsychologiaAuthor(s): Yannick Wamain, Xavier Corveleyn, Laurent Ott, Yann CoelloAbstractThe contribution of the motor system to perception has been highlighted in research investigating the effect of performing an action on the conscious processing of information received from the sensory systems. For example, the perceptual temporal asynchrony observed when passively reporting changes in visual object attributes (e.g., colour and position) was found to disappear virtually when the changes resulted from a voluntary motor action. Although the spatio-temporal constraints of sensory binding by action have been broadly investigated, the underlying neural correlates are still largely unknown. In the present study, participants performed temporal order judgments of changes in the colour and position of a visual stimulus, while adapting to a 750 ms delay between a sound (perceptual condition) or the end of a manual reaching action (motor condition), and the visual changes. Behavioural observations indicated that temporal asynchrony (-30.2 ms) decreased in the motor condition (2.7 ms), as a result of sensorimotor adaptation, but not in the perceptual condition (-29.6 ms). EEG-evoked potentials on posterior visual regions showed that early components were altered by sensorimotor adaptation, with in particular a broad reduction in the amplitude of the early P1 component. Furthermore, time-frequency analysis of EEG sign...

Source: Neuropsychologia - June 12, 2019 Category: Neurology Source Type: research