Descripción del proyecto
SOME PHYSICAL CIRCUMSTANCES (E,G,, THE FACT THAT THE LIGHT AND THE SOUND DO NOT TRAVEL AT THE SAME VELOCITY IN THE AIR) AND/OR PHYSIOLOGICAL (THE AUDITORY SIGNAL REACHES THE CEREBRAL CORTEX EARLIER THAN THE VISUAL SIGNAL) CAN ORIGINATE TEMPORAL MISMATCH BETWEEN SENSORY INFORMATION REGARDING THE SAME EXTERNAL EVENT, IT HAS BEEN SEEN THAT A CONTINUOUS EXPOSURE TO, FOR EXAMPLE, ASYNCHRONOUS AUDIOVISUAL STIMULI INITIATE SOME PROCESSES OF TEMPORAL REALIGNMENT BETWEEN THE VISUAL AND THE AUDITORY SIGNALS TO INCREASE THE SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSION OF SIMULTANEITY, HOWEVER, THE CEREBRAL MECHANISMS UNDERLYING THIS TEMPORAL RECALIBRATION HAVE NOT BEEN STUDIED IN DETAIL YET, OUR FIRST AIM WILL BE SEE WHETHER THE NEURAL PROCESSING OF VISUAL, AUDITORY AND TACTILE SIGNALS IS SPEEDED UP OR SLOWED DOWN AS THE RESULT OF THIS TEMPORAL REALIGNMENT, WE WILL SEE, FOR EXAMPLE, IF OUR REACTION TIMES (RTS) TO ISOLATED (UNIMODAL; E,G,, AUDITORY) STIMULI ARE ACCELERATED OR SLOWED DOWN BY MEANS OF TEMPORAL ADAPTATION TO ASYNCHRONOUS SIGNALS, EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS (ERPS) WILL BE ANALYZED TO SEE, AMONG OTHER THINGS, WHETHER THE TIME LATENCY OF OUR BRAIN¿S ELECTRIC RESPONSES TO VISUAL, AUDITORY OR TACTILE SHIFTS DEPENDING ON THE SPECIFIC DIRECTION IN THE PERCEIVED ASYNCHRONY (E,G,, ERP TO AUDITORY STIMULI APPEARING EARLIER AS A RESULT OF VA, VISUAL-FIRST/AUDITORY-SECOND, ASYNCHRONY), OUR SECOND AIM WILL BE TO DETERMINE WHETHER THIS TEMPORAL REALIGNMENT OCCURS IN EARLY (UNIMODAL) OR LATE (BIMODAL; INTEGRATIVE) STAGES OF SIGNAL PROCESSING, FOLLOWING OUR THIRD AIM, WE WILL ANALYZE WHETHER THESE MECHANISMS CAN BE MODULATED BY (1) MANIPULATING SELECTIVE ATTENTION AND (2) THE PRIOR EXPERIENCE WITH THE PERCEIVED STIMULI (E,G,, SEEING/HEARING A FACE SPEAKING IN OUR LANGUAGE VS, SPEAKING IN ANOTHER UNKNOWN, OR LESS KNOWN, LANGUAGE), WE WILL ALSO TRY TO SEE IF THE INCREMENT OF THE (REAL) PHYSICAL DISTANCE BETWEEN THE PERCEIVER AND THE EXTERNAL EVENT LEADS TO LARGER TEMPORAL RECALIBRATION EFFECTS, FINALLY, WE WILL INVESTIGATE IF THE TEMPORAL RECALIBRATION MECHANISMS ARE INNATE, THAT IS, CAN BE OBSERVED IN NEWBORNS AND/OR IF THEY NEED FROM EXPERIENCE WITH THE ENVIRONMENT TO DEVELOP, INTEGRACION MULTISENSORIAL\RECALIBRACION\TIEMPO\ATENCION\EXPERIENCIA\PROCESOS TOP-DOWN\POTENCIALES EVOCADOS