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Plasticity in human sound localization induced by compressed spatial vision

Abstract

Auditory and visual target locations are encoded differently in the brain, but must be co-calibrated to maintain cross-sensory concordance. Mechanisms that adjust spatial calibration across modalities have been described (for example, prism adaptation in owls), though rudimentarily in humans. We quantified the adaptation of human sound localization in response to spatially compressed vision (0.5× lenses for 2–3 days). This induced a corresponding compression of auditory localization that was most pronounced for azimuth (minimal for elevation) and was restricted to the visual field of the lenses. Sound localization was also affected outside the field of visual–auditory interaction (shifted centrally, not compressed). These results suggest that spatially modified vision induces adaptive changes in adult human sound localization, including novel mechanisms that account for spatial compression. Findings are consistent with a model in which the central processing of sound location is encoded by recruitment rather than by a place code.

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Figure 1: Pre-adaptation sound localization responses from one representative subject.
Figure 2: Grand-average spatial gain adaptation.
Figure 3: Local changes in auditory spatial gain (combining azimuth and elevation).
Figure 4: Adaptive changes in sound localization for the same subject illustrated in Fig. 1.
Figure 5: Adaptive changes in sound localization for all subjects (format as in Fig. 4).
Figure 6: Effect of target elevation on the adaptation of sound azimuth localization.
Figure 7: Two schemes of sound localization adaptation.
Figure 8: Recruitment model of azimuth-encoding IID cells.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Human Frontiers Science Program (RG0174/1998–B), National Institutes of Health grants AG16319, DC01935 and RR09283, the Centers for Visual Science and for Navigation and Communication Sciences, the Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information in the Netherlands (965NWOW2701 to M.P.Z.), and the Universities of Rochester, NY (G.D.P.) and Nijmegen, NL (M.P.Z. and J.V.O.). We would like to thank all subjects who participated in the experiments and L. Nagy, J. Housel and M. Gira for their technical assistance.

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Correspondence to Gary D. Paige.

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Zwiers, M., Van Opstal, A. & Paige, G. Plasticity in human sound localization induced by compressed spatial vision. Nat Neurosci 6, 175–181 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn999

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