Noelle R. B. Stiles

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Multisensory Integration and Crossmodal Plasticity in the Brain

Traditionally, vision, audition, and touch have been understood to be isolated sensations.  Yet, in daily experience all the senses are blended into one holistic perception.  In other words, a rose is not seen, then smelled, and then felt.  Rather the rose’s radiant colors enhance the perception of its sweet scent, velvet texture, and rustling leaves.  As recent studies have shown evidence for extensive multisensory or crossmodal interactions in the brain and behavior, the model of isolated sensations has become increasingly outdated, and a new model of dense multimodal interactions has developed.

My research is focused on the study of these multimodal interactions, in particular, investigating how sensations cooperate with each other, resolve conflicting signals, and change when one sense is removed or restored.  This multimodal research has a few primary concentrations of study:

• Enhanced crossmodal plasticity in the blind relative to the sighted
• Devices to aid blind, such as sensory substitution and retinal prosthesis
• Time perception via visual and auditory rate integration
• Multimodal illusions such as double flash and the rabbit illusion

News:

• Dr. Stiles in collaboration with the Optical Materials and Devices Lab and Shimojo Psychophysics lab is hiring a postdoctoral scholar. Postdoctoral Scholar Ad
• Dr. Stiles was awarded a 2020 NIH/NEI BRAIN Initiative K99/R00: Advanced Postdoctoral Career Transition Award to neuroimage patients implanted with the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System. The BRAIN Intiative K99/R00 Awardee List
• New paper published in Journal of Vision on visual-tactile shape perception in Argus II retinal prosthesis patients. Paper: Visual Tactile Shape Perception in the Visually Restored with Artificial Vision
• New paper published in Vision Research on crossmodal correspondences in Argus II retinal prosthesis patients. These vision restoration patients exhibited accelerated visual search with auditory cueing. Paper: Multisensory Perception in Argus II Retinal Prosthesis Patients: Leveraging Auditory-Visual Mappings to Enhance Prosthesis Outcomes
• New review paper published on crossmodal postdiction, a multisensory phenomenon in which later stimuli affect the perception of earlier stimuli across the senses. Paper: Crossmodal Postdiction: Conscious Perception as Revisionist History. This review paper builds on our previous publication that describes two new postdictive auditory-visual illusions in the sighted. Video Paper: What You Saw is What You Will Hear: Two New Illusions With Audiovisual Postdictive Effects
• New paper published in eLife on a novel navigational auditory aid for the blind. This device uses natural language and auditory spatial cues to identify objects and guide blind participants along a path towards a target location. The device uses the Microsoft Hololens to generate the path and to detect obstacles along the way. Paper: Augmented Reality Powers a Cognitive Assistant for the Blind