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The Influence of Tactile Cognitive Maps on Auditory Space Perception in Sighted Persons
We have recently shown that vision is important to improve spatial auditory cognition. In this study, we investigate whether touch is as effective as vision to create a cognitive map of a soundscape. In particular, we tested whether the creation of a mental representation of a room, obtained through...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2016
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5088781/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27847488 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01683 |
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author | Tonelli, Alessia Gori, Monica Brayda, Luca |
author_facet | Tonelli, Alessia Gori, Monica Brayda, Luca |
author_sort | Tonelli, Alessia |
collection | PubMed |
description | We have recently shown that vision is important to improve spatial auditory cognition. In this study, we investigate whether touch is as effective as vision to create a cognitive map of a soundscape. In particular, we tested whether the creation of a mental representation of a room, obtained through tactile exploration of a 3D model, can influence the perception of a complex auditory task in sighted people. We tested two groups of blindfolded sighted people – one experimental and one control group – in an auditory space bisection task. In the first group, the bisection task was performed three times: specifically, the participants explored with their hands the 3D tactile model of the room and were led along the perimeter of the room between the first and the second execution of the space bisection. Then, they were allowed to remove the blindfold for a few minutes and look at the room between the second and third execution of the space bisection. Instead, the control group repeated for two consecutive times the space bisection task without performing any environmental exploration in between. Considering the first execution as a baseline, we found an improvement in the precision after the tactile exploration of the 3D model. Interestingly, no additional gain was obtained when room observation followed the tactile exploration, suggesting that no additional gain was obtained by vision cues after spatial tactile cues were internalized. No improvement was found between the first and the second execution of the space bisection without environmental exploration in the control group, suggesting that the improvement was not due to task learning. Our results show that tactile information modulates the precision of an ongoing space auditory task as well as visual information. This suggests that cognitive maps elicited by touch may participate in cross-modal calibration and supra-modal representations of space that increase implicit knowledge about sound propagation. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5088781 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-50887812016-11-15 The Influence of Tactile Cognitive Maps on Auditory Space Perception in Sighted Persons Tonelli, Alessia Gori, Monica Brayda, Luca Front Psychol Psychology We have recently shown that vision is important to improve spatial auditory cognition. In this study, we investigate whether touch is as effective as vision to create a cognitive map of a soundscape. In particular, we tested whether the creation of a mental representation of a room, obtained through tactile exploration of a 3D model, can influence the perception of a complex auditory task in sighted people. We tested two groups of blindfolded sighted people – one experimental and one control group – in an auditory space bisection task. In the first group, the bisection task was performed three times: specifically, the participants explored with their hands the 3D tactile model of the room and were led along the perimeter of the room between the first and the second execution of the space bisection. Then, they were allowed to remove the blindfold for a few minutes and look at the room between the second and third execution of the space bisection. Instead, the control group repeated for two consecutive times the space bisection task without performing any environmental exploration in between. Considering the first execution as a baseline, we found an improvement in the precision after the tactile exploration of the 3D model. Interestingly, no additional gain was obtained when room observation followed the tactile exploration, suggesting that no additional gain was obtained by vision cues after spatial tactile cues were internalized. No improvement was found between the first and the second execution of the space bisection without environmental exploration in the control group, suggesting that the improvement was not due to task learning. Our results show that tactile information modulates the precision of an ongoing space auditory task as well as visual information. This suggests that cognitive maps elicited by touch may participate in cross-modal calibration and supra-modal representations of space that increase implicit knowledge about sound propagation. Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-11-01 /pmc/articles/PMC5088781/ /pubmed/27847488 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01683 Text en Copyright © 2016 Tonelli, Gori and Brayda. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Tonelli, Alessia Gori, Monica Brayda, Luca The Influence of Tactile Cognitive Maps on Auditory Space Perception in Sighted Persons |
title | The Influence of Tactile Cognitive Maps on Auditory Space Perception in Sighted Persons |
title_full | The Influence of Tactile Cognitive Maps on Auditory Space Perception in Sighted Persons |
title_fullStr | The Influence of Tactile Cognitive Maps on Auditory Space Perception in Sighted Persons |
title_full_unstemmed | The Influence of Tactile Cognitive Maps on Auditory Space Perception in Sighted Persons |
title_short | The Influence of Tactile Cognitive Maps on Auditory Space Perception in Sighted Persons |
title_sort | influence of tactile cognitive maps on auditory space perception in sighted persons |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5088781/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27847488 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01683 |
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