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Functional imaging of human crossmodal identification and object recognition

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Abstract

The perception of objects is a cognitive function of prime importance. In everyday life, object perception benefits from the coordinated interplay of vision, audition, and touch. The different sensory modalities provide both complementary and redundant information about objects, which may improve recognition speed and accuracy in many circumstances. We review crossmodal studies of object recognition in humans that mainly employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). These studies show that visual, tactile, and auditory information about objects can activate cortical association areas that were once believed to be modality-specific. Processing converges either in multisensory zones or via direct crossmodal interaction of modality-specific cortices without relay through multisensory regions. We integrate these findings with existing theories about semantic processing and propose a general mechanism for crossmodal object recognition: The recruitment and location of multisensory convergence zones varies depending on the information content and the dominant modality.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by a Horowitz Foundation fellowship (A.A.), the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF; K.v.K., M.J.N.), the Volkswagenstiftung (K.v.K.), and the Max Planck Society (M.J.N). The authors thank Nikolas Francis, Axel Kohler (for help with the figures), Lotfi Merabet, Wolf Singer, Lars Muckli, and three anonymous reviewers (for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper). Reprint requests and remarks should be addressed to Marcus Johannes Naumer (H.J.Naumer@med.uni-frankfurt.de) or to Amir Amedi (aamedi@bidmc.harvard.edu).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Magnetic Brain Stimulation, Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    A. Amedi

  2. Cognitive Neurology Unit, Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

    K. von Kriegstein

  3. Brain Imaging Center (BIC), Frankfurt/Main, Germany

    K. von Kriegstein & M. J. Naumer

  4. Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, University of Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    N. M. van Atteveldt

  5. Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    M. S. Beauchamp

  6. Department of Neurophysiology, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

    M. J. Naumer

  7. Institute of Medical Psychology, Frankfurt Medical School, Heinrich-Hoffmann-Strasse 10, 60528, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

    M. J. Naumer

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  1. A. Amedi
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Correspondence to M. J. Naumer.

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A. Amedi, K. von Kriegstein, N. M. van Atteveldt, M. S. Beauchamp and M. J. Naumeri contributed equally to this work

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Amedi, A., von Kriegstein, K., van Atteveldt, N.M. et al. Functional imaging of human crossmodal identification and object recognition. Exp Brain Res 166, 559–571 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-005-2396-5

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