eprintid: 2915
rev_number: 6
eprint_status: archive
userid: 69
dir: disk0/00/00/29/15
datestamp: 2015-11-18 10:41:55
lastmod: 2016-09-13 09:50:51
status_changed: 2015-11-18 10:41:55
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Helbig, Hannah B.
creators_name: Ernst, Marc O.
creators_name: Ricciardi, Emiliano
creators_name: Pietrini, Pietro
creators_name: Thielscher, Axel
creators_name: Mayer, Katja M.
creators_name: Schultz, Johannes
creators_name: Noppeney, Uta
creators_id: 
creators_id: 
creators_id: emiliano.ricciardi@imtlucca.it
creators_id: pietro.pietrini@imtlucca.it
creators_id: 
creators_id: 
creators_id: 
creators_id: 
title: The neural mechanisms of reliability weighted integration of shape information from vision and touch
ispublished: pub
subjects: RC0321
divisions: CSA
full_text_status: none
keywords: Vision, Touch, Multisensory integration, Maximum Likelihood Estimation, Shape, fMRI, Postcentral sulcus
abstract: Behaviourally, humans have been shown to integrate multisensory information in a statistically-optimal fashion by averaging the individual unisensory estimates according to their relative reliabilities. This form of integration is optimal in that it yields the most reliable (i.e. least variable) multisensory percept. The present study investigates the neural mechanisms underlying integration of visual and tactile shape information at the macroscopic scale of the regional {BOLD} response. Observers discriminated the shapes of ellipses that were presented bimodally (visual–tactile) or visually alone. A 2 × 5 factorial design manipulated (i) the presence vs. absence of tactile shape information and (ii) the reliability of the visual shape information (five levels). We then investigated whether regional activations underlying tactile shape discrimination depended on the reliability of visual shape. Indeed, in primary somatosensory cortices (bilateral BA2) and the superior parietal lobe the responses to tactile shape input were increased when the reliability of visual shape information was reduced. Conversely, tactile inputs suppressed visual activations in the right posterior fusiform gyrus, when the visual signal was blurred and unreliable. Somatosensory and visual cortices may sustain integration of visual and tactile shape information either via direct connections from visual areas or top-down effects from higher order parietal areas.
date: 2012
date_type: published
publication: NeuroImage
volume: 60
number: 2
publisher: Elsevier
pagerange: 1063 - 1072
id_number: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.09.072
refereed: TRUE
issn: 1053-8119
official_url: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811911011475
citation:   Helbig, Hannah B. and Ernst, Marc O. and Ricciardi, Emiliano and Pietrini, Pietro and Thielscher, Axel and Mayer, Katja M. and Schultz, Johannes and Noppeney, Uta  The neural mechanisms of reliability weighted integration of shape information from vision and touch.  NeuroImage, 60 (2).  1063 - 1072.  ISSN 1053-8119      (2012)