Top-down control and early multisensory processes: chicken vs. egg

By Rosanna De Meo, Micah M. Murray, Stephanie Clarke, Pawel J. Matusz. 2015

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Traditional views contend that behaviorally-relevant multisensory interactions occur relatively late during stimulus processing and subsequently to influences of (top-down) attentional control. In contrast, work from the last 15 years shows that information from different senses is integrated in the brain also during the initial 100 ms after stimulus onset and within low-level cortices. Critically, many of these early-latency multisensory interactions (hereafter eMSI) directly impact behavior. The prevalence of eMSI substantially advances our understanding of how unified perception and goal-related behavior emerge. However, it also raises important questions about the dependency of the eMSI on top-down, goal-based attentional control mechanisms that bias information processing toward task-relevant objects (hereafter top-down control). To date, this dependency remains controversial, because eMSI can occur independently of top-down control, making it plausible for (some) multisensory processes to directly shape perception and behavior. In other words, the former is not necessary for these early effects to occur and to link them with perception (see Figure Figure1A).1A). This issue epitomizes the fundamental question regarding direct links between sensation, perception, and behavior (direct perception), and also extends it in a crucial way to incorporate the multisensory nature of everyday experience. At the same time, the emerging framework must strive to also incorporate the variety of higher-order control mechanisms that likely influence multisensory stimulus responses but which are not based on task-relevance. This article presents a critical perspective about the importance of top-down control for eMSI: In other words, who is controlling whom? Figure 1 (A) Depiction of manners in which top-down attentional control and bottom-up multisensory processes may influence direct perception in multisensory contexts. In this model, the bottom-up multisensory processes that occur early in time (eMSI; beige box) ...

Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Nutrition and Dietetics, Sensory Systems

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Citations in the corpus

Contextual factors multiplex to control multisensory processes (2016, background): “More broadly, the current study sheds new light on the ongoing debate regarding the influence of top-down control on multisensory processes [De Meo et al., 2015; Murray et al., 2015; van Atteveldt et al., 2014; Talsma et al., 2010; ten Oever et al., unpublished data].”
The multisensory function of the human primary visual cortex. (2016, background): “…view of brain organisation and perception, wherein the convergence and integration of information from different senses within low-level cortices is a rule rather than an exception (e.g. Ghazanfar and Schroeder, 2006; van Atteveldt et al., 2014a; de Meo et al., 2015; ten Oever et al., 2015) (Fig.”