Crossmodal learning of target-context associations: When would tactile context predict visual search?

摘要

Illustration of the experimental setup. As illustrated in the left panel, tactile and visual stimuli were presented at spatially corresponding locations on a lower and an upper presentation plane, respectively. The visual stimuli consisted of eight Gabor patches subtending about 1.8° of visual angle (with a distance of about 1.9° between adjacent patches) presented, on a grey background, at eight locations positioned along two virtual ‘curves’ (one to the left and one to the right) over the horizontal axis, overlapping with the locations of the eight actuators (with a diameter of 1.8 cm, Dancer Design) on the lower plane. The target Gabor was defined by an orientation difference relative to the distractor Gabors (in the example, the target Gabor is tilted to the right compared to the distractors). As illustrated in the right panel, the height difference between the visual and tactile presentation planes was about 20 cm. Visual stimuli were presented on a white canvas surface tilted about 20° towards the observer. The viewing distance was 60 cm. Participants placed their fingers (except the thumbs) on the eight solenoid actuators