Top-down influences on the crossmodal gamma band oscillation
Noriaki Kanayama, Luigi Tamè, Hideki Ohira, Francesco Pavani
Poster
Last modified: 2008-05-09
Abstract
Visuotactile congruency effect has been considered as a behavioral index for the operation of bimodal (visuotactile) neurons in the human brain. Given that the visual receptive field in the bimodal neurons could share tactile receptive map onto the hand, the location information of visual stimulus could disturb localization of the tactile stimulus on the hand. If the bimodal neurons are sub-serving the visuotactile congruency effect and these neurons represent an early sensory representation, then it may be that the process producing the interference is immune from top-down strategic influences. In our study, participants hold a foamed cube in left hand, on which are mounted two tactile vibrators (on the top and bottom of the cube) along with two light emitting diodes (LEDs) adjacent to the vibrators. The task is to respond the elevation of the tactile stimulus (upper or lower) while ignoring the simultaneous visual stimulus. In order to investigate the top-down influence on the visuotactile congruency effect, the proportion of congruent trial was modulated across blocks. Our results suggest that the congruency effect on RT was modulated by the proportion of the congruent trial, also the gamma band activity was correspond to this modulation.