City Research Online

Abstract

Primary somatosensory cortex (S1) is known to rapidly adapt to task demands and to intermodal information (e.g. from vision). Here we show that also intramodal information (i.e. posture) can affect tactile attentional selection processes and the intermodal effects of vision on those processes at S1 stages of processing. We manipulated the spatial separation between adjacent fingers; that is, thumb and index finger where either close, far apart or touching. Participants directed their attention to either the index finger or thumb to detect infrequent tactile targets at that location while they either saw their fingers or these were covered from view. In line with previous results we found that attentional selection affected early somatosensory processing (P45, N80) when fingers were near and this attention effect was abolished when fingers were viewed. When fingers were far or touching, attentional modulations appeared reliably only from the P100, and furthermore, enhanced tactile spatial selection was found when touching fingers were viewed. Taken together, these results show for the first time a profound effect of finger posture on attentional selection between fingers and its modulations by vision at early cortical stages of processing. They suggest that the adverse effects of vision on tactile attention are not driven by a conflict between the selected information in vision (two fingers) and touch (one finger), and imply that external spatial information (i.e. finger posture) rapidly affects the organisation of primary somatosensory finger representations and that this further affects vision and tactile spatial selection effects on S1.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00221-012-3171-z
Publisher Keywords:	Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Neurosciences, Neurosciences & Neurology, NEUROSCIENCES, Visuo-tactile, Somatosensory, ERPs, Spatial attention, Finger posture, TEMPORAL-ORDER JUDGMENTS, SOMATOSENSORY CORTEX, ATTENTION, REPRESENTATION, INHIBITION, VISION, TOUCH
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Departments:	School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Psychology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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