King Andrew J
Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, Sherrington Building, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PT, UK.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2009 Feb 12;364(1515):331-9. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2008.0230.
The visual and auditory systems frequently work together to facilitate the identification and localization of objects and events in the external world. Experience plays a critical role in establishing and maintaining congruent visual-auditory associations, so that the different sensory cues associated with targets that can be both seen and heard are synthesized appropriately. For stimulus location, visual information is normally more accurate and reliable and provides a reference for calibrating the perception of auditory space. During development, vision plays a key role in aligning neural representations of space in the brain, as revealed by the dramatic changes produced in auditory responses when visual inputs are altered, and is used throughout life to resolve short-term spatial conflicts between these modalities. However, accurate, and even supra-normal, auditory localization abilities can be achieved in the absence of vision, and the capacity of the mature brain to relearn to localize sound in the presence of substantially altered auditory spatial cues does not require visuomotor feedback. Thus, while vision is normally used to coordinate information across the senses, the neural circuits responsible for spatial hearing can be recalibrated in a vision-independent fashion. Nevertheless, early multisensory experience appears to be crucial for the emergence of an ability to match signals from different sensory modalities and therefore for the outcome of audiovisual-based rehabilitation of deaf patients in whom hearing has been restored by cochlear implantation.
视觉和听觉系统经常协同工作，以促进对外部世界中物体和事件的识别与定位。经验在建立和维持一致的视听关联方面起着关键作用，这样与既能看到又能听到的目标相关的不同感官线索就能得到适当的整合。对于刺激位置而言，视觉信息通常更准确、更可靠，并为校准听觉空间感知提供参考。在发育过程中，视觉在使大脑中空间的神经表征对齐方面发挥着关键作用，这一点从视觉输入改变时听觉反应所产生的显著变化中可以看出，并且在一生中视觉都被用于解决这些模态之间的短期空间冲突。然而，在没有视觉的情况下也能够实现准确甚至超常的听觉定位能力，并且成熟大脑在存在显著改变的听觉空间线索时重新学习定位声音的能力并不需要视觉运动反馈。因此，虽然视觉通常用于跨感官协调信息，但负责空间听觉的神经回路可以以独立于视觉的方式重新校准。尽管如此，早期的多感官体验对于出现匹配来自不同感官模态信号的能力似乎至关重要，因此对于通过人工耳蜗植入恢复听力的聋人患者基于视听的康复结果也至关重要。
