Beyond sense-specific processing: decoding texture in the brain from touch and sonified movement.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Sensory Perception
• Multisensory Integration

Background:

• Texture perception is fundamental for object interaction.
• It relies on multisensory information, including touch and auditory cues.
• Shared neural representations may enable coherent multisensory perception.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate shared brain representations for texture perception across auditory and haptic modalities.
• To test the hypothesis that multisensory integration occurs in primary sensory cortices.

Main Methods:

• Participants performed texture roughness estimation tasks using haptic, auditory, or combined cues.
• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to monitor brain activity.
• Multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) examined neural activity patterns.

Main Results:

• Somatosensory, auditory, and visual cortices showed activation during both haptic and auditory texture exploration.
• Audio-tactile integration was identified in secondary somatosensory (S2) and primary auditory cortices.
• Shared spatial activity patterns for texture discrimination were found in primary motor and somatosensory cortices.

Conclusions:

• Primary sensory cortices and S2 exhibit versatile, multisensory texture representations.
• This challenges the notion of strict sense-specific processing in early cortical areas.
• Findings have implications for understanding how the brain integrates multisensory information for environmental interaction.