Multisensory Processing

In everyday life, the multiple inputs that enter our sensory systems provide us with complementary and redundant information about objects in our environment. For instance, early work on multisensory processes demonstrated that visual inputs can lead to an improvement in speech recognition performance that corresponds to about 15-20 dB of sound intensity. This example illustrates the high relevance of multisensory interactions for the processing of sensory information. Therefore, it is important to study multisensory interactions and their underlying neural mechanisms. We have recently introduced a new hypothesis, which considers the dynamic interplay of neural populations as a key to multisensory processing (Senkowski et al. 2008, TINS). This hypothesis strongly guides my work on the neural mechanisms underlying multisensory processing.

Key Publications

Senkowski D, Saint-Amour D, Höfle M, Foxe JJ (2011). Multisensory interactions in early evoked brain activity follow the principle of inverse effectiveness. Neuroimage 56: 2200-2208.

Talsma D, Senkowski D, Soto-Faraco S, Woldorff MG (2010). The multifaceted interplay between attention and multisensory integration. Trends in Cognitive Sciences14: 400-410. (PDF)

Senkowski D, Schneider TR, Foxe JJ, Engel AK (2008). Crossmodal binding by neural coherence: Implications for multisensory processing. Trends in Neurosciences 31: 401-409. (PDF)

Senkowski D, Talsma D, Grigutsch M, Herrmann CS, Woldorff MG (2007). Good times for multisensory integration: Effects of the precision of temporal synchrony as revealed by gamma-band oscillations. Neuropsychologia 45: 561-571 (PDF)

Senkowski D, Molholm S, Gomez-Ramirez M, Foxe JJ (2006). Oscillatory beta activity predicts response speed during a multisensory audiovisual reaction time task: A high-density electrical mapping study. Cerebral Cortex 16: 1556-1565 (PDF)