The University of Queensland, Queensland Brain Institute, QLD 4072, Australia.
Neuroimage. 2012 Sep;62(3):1334-41. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.05.063. Epub 2012 May 30.
Selective attention and multisensory integration are fundamental to perception, but little is known about whether, or under what circumstances, these processes interact to shape conscious awareness. Here, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate the causal role of attention-related brain networks in multisensory integration between visual and auditory stimuli in the sound-induced flash illusion. The flash illusion is a widely studied multisensory phenomenon in which a single flash of light is falsely perceived as multiple flashes in the presence of irrelevant sounds. We investigated the hypothesis that extrastriate regions involved in selective attention, specifically within the right parietal cortex, exert an influence on the multisensory integrative processes that cause the flash illusion. We found that disruption of the right angular gyrus, but not of the adjacent supramarginal gyrus or of a sensory control site, enhanced participants' veridical perception of the multisensory events, thereby reducing their susceptibility to the illusion. Our findings suggest that the same parietal networks that normally act to enhance perception of attended events also play a role in the binding of auditory and visual stimuli in the sound-induced flash illusion.
选择性注意和多感觉整合对于感知至关重要，但人们对于这些过程是否以及在何种情况下相互作用以形成意识知之甚少。在这里，我们使用经颅磁刺激（TMS）来研究与注意力相关的大脑网络在视觉和听觉刺激之间的多感觉整合中的因果作用，这种整合在声音诱导的闪光错觉中出现。闪光错觉是一种广泛研究的多感觉现象，其中单个闪光被错误地感知为多个闪光，而存在不相关的声音。我们假设，参与选择性注意的额外纹状体区域，特别是右顶叶皮层内的区域，对引起闪光错觉的多感觉整合过程产生影响。我们发现，破坏右角回，但不破坏相邻的缘上回或感觉控制部位，增强了参与者对多感觉事件的真实感知，从而降低了他们对错觉的易感性。我们的发现表明，通常用于增强注意力事件感知的相同顶叶网络也在声音诱导的闪光错觉中发挥作用，将听觉和视觉刺激绑定在一起。
