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Science 22 November 2002:
Vol. 298. no. 5598, pp. 1627 - 1630
DOI: 10.1126/science.1075396
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Reports

Combining Sensory Information: Mandatory Fusion Within, but Not Between, Senses

J. M. Hillis,1*dagger ddagger M. O. Ernst,2* M. S. Banks,13 M. S. Landy4

Humans use multiple sources of sensory information to estimate environmental properties. For example, the eyes and hands both provide relevant information about an object's shape. The eyes estimate shape using binocular disparity, perspective projection, etc. The hands supply haptic shape information by means of tactile and proprioceptive cues. Combining information across cues can improve estimation of object properties but may come at a cost: loss of single-cue information. We report that single-cue information is indeed lost when cues from within the same sensory modality (disparity and texture gradients in vision) are combined, but not when different modalities (vision and haptics) are combined.

1 Vision Science Program, School of Optometry, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-2020, USA.
2 Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Spemannstrabeta e 38, 72076, Tübingen, Germany.
3 Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-1650, USA.
4 Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA.
*   These authors contributed equally to this work.

dagger    Present address: University of Pennsylvania, Department of Psychology, 3815 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.

ddagger    To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jmhillis{at}CATTELL.psych.upenn.edu

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