Lovelace Christopher T, Stein Barry E, Wallace Mark T
Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 4825 Troost Avenue, Kansas City, MO 64110-2499, USA.
Brain Res Cogn Brain Res. 2003 Jul;17(2):447-53. doi: 10.1016/s0926-6410(03)00160-5.
Physiological and behavioral studies in animal models have revealed that information from the different senses can be used synergistically to enhance the detection of objects and events. Although a great deal of evidence exists which demonstrates the synergistic use of multisensory cues in human behavior and perception, there is conflicting evidence about whether such interactions can be used to aid in stimulus detection. To examine this issue, we had volunteers indicate the presence or absence of a brief, low-intensity sound that was either presented alone or paired with a simultaneous light in a one-interval signal detection task. In the first experiment, the task-irrelevant light was found to enhance the detectability of the sound, but also to increase the subject's willingness to report the presence of a sound (i.e., response bias). In the second experiment, designed to eliminate this response bias, we found an improvement in stimulus detectability in the absence of any change in bias. These findings demonstrate the presence of a significant multisensory-mediated gain in stimulus detection in human subjects.
动物模型的生理和行为研究表明，来自不同感官的信息可以协同使用，以增强对物体和事件的检测。尽管有大量证据表明多感官线索在人类行为和感知中被协同使用，但关于这种相互作用是否可用于辅助刺激检测，存在相互矛盾的证据。为了研究这个问题，我们让志愿者在单间隔信号检测任务中指出是否存在短暂的低强度声音，该声音要么单独呈现，要么与同时出现的光配对呈现。在第一个实验中，发现与任务无关的光增强了声音的可检测性，但也增加了受试者报告声音存在的意愿（即反应偏差）。在第二个旨在消除这种反应偏差的实验中，我们发现在偏差没有任何变化的情况下，刺激可检测性有所提高。这些发现证明了在人类受试者中存在显著的多感官介导的刺激检测增益。
