Visuo-proprioceptive integration and recalibration with multiple visual stimuli

Abstract

To organize the plethora of sensory signals from our environment into a coherent percept, our brain relies on the processes of multisensory integration and sensory recalibration. We here asked how visuo-proprioceptive integration and recalibration are shaped by the presence of more than one potentially relevant visual stimulus, hence paving the way to studying multisensory perception under more naturalistic settings with multiple signals per sensory modality. By manipulating the spatio-temporal correspondence between the hand position and two visual stimuli during a cursor-control task, we contrasted two alternative accounts: that only the temporally more proximal signal enters integration and recalibration similar to a winner-takes-all process, or that the influences of both visual signals superpose. Our results show that integration - and likely also recalibration - are shaped by the superposed contributions of multiple stimuli rather than by only individual ones.