How do we know that a dog is a dog if we have never heard one barking? (IMAGE)
Caption
Setti and colleagues show that the human superior temporal cortex has an innate functional architecture that allows it to represent coherent information across senses and does not require a prior sensory experience to develop. Two cartoon characters play a card game consisting in finding the right match between an auditory and a visual stimulus that are associated with the same object (for instance the muzzle of a dog and its sound represented through the onomatopoeic word “woof”). On the wall, a picture of the brain, in pixel art style, depicts the areas associated with the processing of auditory and visual stimuli (in yellow and blue respectively) and highlight the role of the superior temporal cortex in binding information across senses (blue and yellow). The experimental paradigm is represented in the foreground. One character is blindfolded while the other wears a bandage on the ears to represent the experimental samples and the conditions of the study (congenitally blind and deaf participants; typically developed presented with audio-only or visual only stimulation). The two cards that are flipped artistically illustrate the stimulation used in the study which is the action movie “101 Dalmatians”.
Credit
Francesca Setti, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca
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Re-use of image is possible for news coverage and social media, by giving credit to Francesca Setti.
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Original content