Multisensory influences on vision: Sounds enhance and alter visual-perceptual processing
Visual perception is traditionally studied in isolation from other sensory systems, and while this approach has been exceptionally successful, in the real world, visual objects are often accompanied by sounds, smells, tactile information, or taste. How is visual processing influenced by these other sensory inputs? In this talk, I will review studies from our lab showing that a sound can influence the perception of a visual object in multiple ways. In the first part, I will focus on spatial interactions between sound and sight, demonstrating that co-localized sounds enhance visual perception. Then, I will show that these cross-modal interactions also occur at a higher contextual and semantic level, where naturalistic sounds facilitate the processing of real-world objects that match these sounds. Throughout my talk I will explore to what extent sounds not only improve visual processing but also alter perceptual representations of the objects we see. Most broadly, I will argue for the importance of considering multisensory influences on visual perception for a more complete understanding of our visual experience.
Feeding Exprementation Device ver3 (FED3)
FED3 is a device for behavioral training of mice in vivarium home-cages. Mice interact with FED3 through two nose-pokes and FED3 responds with visual stimuli, auditory stimuli, and by dispensing pellets. As it is used in the home-cage FED3 can be used for around-the-clock training of mice over several weeks. FED3 is open-source and can be built by users for ~10-20x less than commercial solutions for training mice. The control code is also open-source and was designed to be easily modified by users.