Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2022.08.24.505112v1?rss=1

Authors: Cappelloni, M. S. S., Shivkumar, S., Haefner, R. M., Maddox, R. K.

Abstract: The brain combines information from multiple sensory modalities to interpret the environment. These processes, collectively known as multisensory integration, have been modeled as ideal Bayesian causal inference, proposing that perception involves the combination of information from different sensory modalities based on their reliability and their likelihood of stemming from the same causes in the outside world. Bayesian causal inference has explained a variety of multisensory effects in simple tasks but is largely untested in complex sensory scenes where multisensory integration can provide the most benefit. Recently, we presented data challenging the ideal Bayesian model from a new auditory spatial discrimination task in which spatially aligned visual stimuli improve performance despite providing no information about the correct response. Here, we present two modifications of our original experiment to explore potential effects of the stimulus duration, and thus relative reliability of the stimuli, on the multisensory effect we previously measured. While our results replicate the original effect, we do not find clear evidence that the reliability of the stimuli impacts effect size within or across subjects.

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