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Vaina LM, Calabro FJ, Samal A, Rana KD, Mamashli F, Khan S, Hämäläinen M, Ahlfors SP, Ahveninen J. Auditory cues facilitate object movement processing in human extrastriate visual cortex during simulated self-motion: A pilot study. Brain Res 2021; 1765:147489. [PMID: 33882297 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2021.147489] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/04/2020] [Revised: 04/12/2021] [Accepted: 04/13/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Visual segregation of moving objects is a considerable computational challenge when the observer moves through space. Recent psychophysical studies suggest that directionally congruent, moving auditory cues can substantially improve parsing object motion in such settings, but the exact brain mechanisms and visual processing stages that mediate these effects are still incompletely known. Here, we utilized multivariate pattern analyses (MVPA) of MRI-informed magnetoencephalography (MEG) source estimates to examine how crossmodal auditory cues facilitate motion detection during the observer's self-motion. During MEG recordings, participants identified a target object that moved either forward or backward within a visual scene that included nine identically textured objects simulating forward observer translation. Auditory motion cues 1) improved the behavioral accuracy of target localization, 2) significantly modulated the MEG source activity in the areas V2 and human middle temporal complex (hMT+), and 3) increased the accuracy at which the target movement direction could be decoded from hMT+ activity using MVPA. The increase of decoding accuracy by auditory cues in hMT+ was significant also when superior temporal activations in or near auditory cortices were regressed out from the hMT+ source activity to control for source estimation biases caused by point spread. Taken together, these results suggest that parsing object motion from self-motion-induced optic flow in the human extrastriate visual cortex can be facilitated by crossmodal influences from auditory system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucia M Vaina
- Brain and Vision Research Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA; Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Harvard Medical School-Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital, MA, USA
| | - Finnegan J Calabro
- Brain and Vision Research Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Psychiatry and Department of Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | - Abhisek Samal
- Brain and Vision Research Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Kunjan D Rana
- Brain and Vision Research Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Fahimeh Mamashli
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Sheraz Khan
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Matti Hämäläinen
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Seppo P Ahlfors
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Jyrki Ahveninen
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
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Ahveninen J, Ingalls G, Yildirim F, Calabro FJ, Vaina LM. Peripheral visual localization is degraded by globally incongruent auditory-spatial attention cues. Exp Brain Res 2019; 237:2137-2143. [PMID: 31201472 DOI: 10.1007/s00221-019-05578-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/20/2019] [Accepted: 06/07/2019] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Global auditory-spatial orienting cues help the detection of weak visual stimuli, but it is not clear whether crossmodal attention cues also enhance the resolution of visuospatial discrimination. Here, we hypothesized that if anywhere, crossmodal modulations of visual localization should emerge in the periphery where the receptive fields are large. Subjects were presented with trials where a Visual Target, defined by a cluster of low-luminance dots, was shown for 220 ms at 25°-35° eccentricity in either the left or right hemifield. The Visual Target was either Uncued or it was presented 250 ms after a crossmodal Auditory Cue that was simulated either from the same or the opposite hemifield than the Visual Target location. After a whole-screen visual mask displayed for 800 ms, a pair of vertical Reference Bars was presented ipsilateral to the Visual Target. In a two-alternative forced choice task, subjects were asked to determine which of these two bars was closer to the center of the Visual Target. When the Auditory Cue and Visual Target were hemispatially incongruent, the speed and accuracy of visual localization performance was significantly impaired. However, hemispatially congruent Auditory Cues did not improve the localization of Visual Targets when compared to the Uncued condition. Further analyses suggested that the crossmodal Auditory Cues decreased the sensitivity (d') of the Visual Target localization without affecting post-perceptual decision biases. Our results suggest that in the visual periphery, the detrimental effect of hemispatially incongruent Auditory Cues is far greater than the benefit produced by hemispatially congruent cues. Our working hypothesis for future studies is that auditory-spatial attention cues suppress irrelevant visual locations in a global fashion, without modulating the local visual precision at relevant sites.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jyrki Ahveninen
- Harvard Medical School, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA.
| | - Grace Ingalls
- Brain and Vision Research Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Funda Yildirim
- Brain and Vision Research Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Finnegan J Calabro
- Brain and Vision Research Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
- Department of Psychiatry and Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | - Lucia M Vaina
- Harvard Medical School, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA
- Brain and Vision Research Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
- Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
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