Seveso Martina A, Hirst Rebecca J, O'Dowd Alan, Camponogara Ivan, Newell Fiona N
School of Psychology and Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
Department of Psychology, College of Natural and Health Sciences, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Exp Brain Res. 2026 Feb 21;244(4):48. doi: 10.1007/s00221-026-07238-5.
Object categorisation is a fundamental cognitive process, involving the integration of information across the senses. We investigated, using smartphones, whether visual and tactile motion cues could enhance object category learning and generalisation to novel object shapes. Two categories of similar shapes were associated with specific correlated visual and tactile vibration motion cues. After learning object categories, participants were assessed on categorisation of learned and novel objects across four cue conditions: shape-only, shape-visual motion, shape-tactile motion, and shape-visual and tactile motion. We also assessed if accuracy was influenced by blocked versus interleaved cue-conditions at test. In Experiment 1, we found more accurate categorisation and generalisation when all cues were available at test. In Experiment 2 we replicated this effect even when the reliability of the shape-only cue for predicting category membership was reduced. In Experiment 3, we found that the absence of motion cues during learning removed the benefit of motion cues at test. Overall, our findings suggest that multisensory motion cues benefit the formation of novel object categories and allow for better generalisation. The results have implications for our understanding of the underlying dynamic and multisensory nature of object categories and the predictive role of multisensory features on category formation.
物体分类是一种基本的认知过程，涉及跨感官信息的整合。我们使用智能手机进行了研究，探究视觉和触觉运动线索是否能够增强物体类别学习以及对新物体形状的泛化能力。两类相似形状与特定的相关视觉和触觉振动运动线索相关联。在学习物体类别之后，对参与者在四种线索条件下对已学物体和新物体的分类进行评估：仅形状、形状-视觉运动、形状-触觉运动以及形状-视觉和触觉运动。我们还评估了测试时准确性是否受线索条件分组呈现与交错呈现方式的影响。在实验1中，我们发现当测试时所有线索都可用时，分类和泛化更为准确。在实验2中我们重复了这一效应，即便仅形状线索预测类别归属的可靠性降低。在实验3中，我们发现学习过程中没有运动线索会消除测试时运动线索带来的益处。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明多感官运动线索有利于新物体类别的形成，并能实现更好的泛化。这些结果对于我们理解物体类别的潜在动态和多感官本质以及多感官特征在类别形成中的预测作用具有启示意义。
