J Cogn Neurosci. 1996 Nov;8(6):497-506. doi: 10.1162/jocn.1996.8.6.497.
Abstract Judgments of the intensity of a stimulus are dependent on the level of central nervous system activity it generates. Generally, it is assumed that such judgments are based on activity along modality-specific pathways. Thus, visual intensity judgments would be based on unimodal visual activity. However, many neurons do not fit neatly within modality-specific categories, but can be influenced by more than one sensory modality. Often the "multisensory" effect is quite pronounced. If these multisensory neurons participate in such fundamental functions as perceived intensity, the presence of a nonvisual (i.e., auditory) cue may have a significant effect on the perceived intensity of a visual cue. The results of the present study were consistent with such a hypothesis. A brief, broad-band auditory stimulus was found to significantly enhance the perceived intensity of an LED. The effect was most pronounced at the lowest visual intensities, and was evident regardless of the location of the auditory cue. However, it was present only at the location of visual fixation. Yet, despite the significant influence of the auditory cue, and its differential effect at different visual intensities, a power function that maintains the proportionality among perceived visual intensities was retained.
摘要 对刺激强度的判断取决于它所产生的中枢神经系统活动水平。一般来说，人们假设这种判断是基于特定模式的活动。因此，视觉强度判断将基于单一的视觉活动。然而，许多神经元并不完全符合特定模式的类别，而是可以受到多种感觉模式的影响。通常情况下，“多感官”效应非常明显。如果这些多感官神经元参与到感知强度等基本功能中，那么非视觉（即听觉）线索的存在可能会对视觉线索的感知强度产生重大影响。本研究的结果与这一假设一致。发现一个短暂的、宽带的听觉刺激会显著增强 LED 的感知强度。这种效应在最低的视觉强度下最为明显，无论听觉线索的位置如何，这种效应都很明显。然而，它只出现在视觉注视的位置。尽管听觉线索有显著的影响，而且它在不同的视觉强度下有不同的影响，但保持了感知视觉强度之间比例关系的幂函数仍然存在。
