Talk 5 Wed.pm Audio–visual recalibration is spatially specific, in

Seeing and Perceiving 25 Supplement (2012) 132
brill.nl/sp
Talk 5 Wed.pm
Audio–visual recalibration is spatially specific,
in external coordinates
David Burr 1,2,∗ , Roberto Arrighi 1,2 , Marco Cicchini 2 and David Aagten-Murphy 1
1
Dipartimento di Psicologia, Universita’ di Firenze, IT
2
Istituto di Neuroscienze del CNR, IT
Abstract
When visual and auditory stimuli are displayed with a spatial offset, the sound is heard at or near the visual
stimulus (ventriloquist effect). After an adaptation period of repeated exposure to spatially offset audio–
visual stimuli, sounds presented alone are perceived spatially displaced, in the direction of the adapting offset
(ventriloquist aftereffect: Recanzione, 1998), pointing to recalibration of audio–visual alignment. Here we
show that the recalibration is spatially selective. Adapting, one visual hemifield to (say) a leftward offset,
and the other to a rightward (or zero) offset produces two separate spatially localized aftereffects, in opposite
directions. If a large (30°) eye-movement is interposed between adaptation and test, the spatial specificity
remains in head-centered coordinates. The results provide further evidence for the existence of spatiotopic
(or at least craniotopic) spatial maps, which are subject to continual recalibration.
Keywords
Audio–visual, spatiotopicity, calibration
Reference
Recanzione, G. H. (1998). Rapidly induced auditory plasticity: The ventriloquism aftereffect, Proc. Natl.
Acad. Sci. 95, 869–875.
Abstract from the 13th International Multisensory Research Forum, University of Oxford, UK, 2012.
* Contact author: [email protected]
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012
DOI:10.1163/187847612X647649