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Emotions are commonly recognized by combining auditory and visual signals (i.e., vocal and facial expressions). Yet it is unknown whether the ability to link emotional signals across modalities depends on early experience with audio-visual stimuli. In the present study, we investigated the role of auditory experience at different stages of development for auditory, visual, and multisensory emotion recognition abilities in three groups of adolescent and adult cochlear implant (CI) users. CI users had a different deafness onset and were compared to three groups of age- and gender-matched hearing control participants. We hypothesized that congenitally deaf (CD) but not early deaf (ED) and late deaf (LD) CI users would show reduced multisensory interactions and a higher visual dominance in emotion perception than their hearing controls. The CD (n = 7), ED (deafness onset: <3 years of age; n = 7), and LD (deafness onset: >3 years; n = 13) CI users and the control participants performed an emotion recognition task with auditory, visual, and audio-visual emotionally congruent and incongruent nonsense speech stimuli. In different blocks, participants judged either the vocal (Voice task) or the facial expressions (Face task). In the Voice task, all three CI groups performed overall less efficiently than their respective controls and experienced higher interference from incongruent facial information. Furthermore, the ED CI users benefitted more than their controls from congruent faces and the CD CI users showed an analogous trend. In the Face task, recognition efficiency of the CI users and controls did not differ. Our results suggest that CI users acquire multisensory interactions to some degree, even after congenital deafness. When judging affective prosody they appear impaired and more strongly biased by concurrent facial information than typically hearing individuals. We speculate that limitations inherent to the CI contribute to these group differences.

Several studies have suggested that neuroplasticity can be triggered by short-term visual deprivation in healthy adults. Specifically, these studies have provided evidence that visual deprivation reversibly affects basic perceptual abilities. The present study investigated the long-lasting effects of short-term visual deprivation on emotion perception. To this aim, we visually deprived a group of young healthy adults, age-matched with a group of non-deprived controls, for 3 h and tested them before and after visual deprivation (i.e., after 8 h on average and at 4 week follow-up) on an audio–visual (i.e., faces and voices) emotion discrimination task. To observe changes at the level of basic perceptual skills, we additionally employed a simple audio–visual (i.e., tone bursts and light flashes) discrimination task and two unimodal (one auditory and one visual) perceptual threshold measures. During the 3 h period, both groups performed a series of auditory tasks. To exclude the possibility that changes in emotion discrimination may emerge as a consequence of the exposure to auditory stimulation during the 3 h stay in the dark, we visually deprived an additional group of age-matched participants who concurrently performed unrelated (i.e., tactile) tasks to the later tested abilities. The two visually deprived groups showed enhanced affective prosodic discrimination abilities in the context of incongruent facial expressions following the period of visual deprivation; this effect was partially maintained until follow-up. By contrast, no changes were observed in affective facial expression discrimination and in the basic perception tasks in any group. These findings suggest that short-term visual deprivation per se triggers a reweighting of visual and auditory emotional cues, which seems to possibly prevail for longer durations.

Sense of body ownership and body representation are fundamental parts of human consciousness, but the contribution of the visual modality to their development remains unclear. We tested congenitally and late blind adults on a somatosensory version of the rubber hand illusion, and on the Aristotle illusion, in which sighted controls touching a single sphere with crossed fingers commonly report perceiving two. We found that congenitally and late blind individuals did not report subjectively experiencing the rubber hand illusion. However, in an objective measure, the congenitally blind did not show a recalibration of the position of their hand towards the rubber hand while late blind and sighted individuals did. By contrast, all groups experienced the Aristotle illusion. This pattern of results provides evidence for a dissociation of the concepts of body ownership and spatial recalibration and, furthermore, suggests different reference frames for hands (external space) and fingers (anatomical space).

Several studies conducted in mammals and humans have shown that multisensory processing may be impaired following congenital sensory loss and in particular if no experience is achieved within specific early developmental time windows known as sensitive periods. In this study we investigated whether basic multisensory abilities are impaired in hearing-restored individuals with deafness acquired at different stages of development. To this aim, we tested congenitally and late deaf cochlear implant (CI) recipients, age-matched with two groups of hearing controls, on an audio-tactile redundancy paradigm, in which reaction times to unimodal and crossmodal redundant signals were measured. Our results showed that both congenitally and late deaf CI recipients were able to integrate audio-tactile stimuli, suggesting that congenital and acquired deafness does not prevent the development and recovery of basic multisensory processing. However, we found that congenitally deaf CI recipients had a lower multisensory gain compared to their matched controls, which may be explained by their faster responses to tactile stimuli. We discuss this finding in the context of reorganisation of the sensory systems following sensory loss and the possibility that these changes cannot be "rewired" through auditory reafferentation. © 2014 Nava et al.

Right head-turning preference is assumed to be a developmental default. This motor asymmetry seems to influence the development of other lateralised behaviours-such as handedness-as a consequence of orienting vision towards the right side of the body. To document the role of visual experience in promoting lateralised functions we assessed head-turning preference and handedness in a group of congenitally blind human adults. We found a left-side preference for head turning but a clear righthandedness in the same individuals. This asymmetric relationship suggests that absence of visual experience can alter head-turning preference and that handedness can emerge without visual orientation towards the right side. Our findings shed new light on the role of visual sensory experience in shaping functional asymmetries and suggest that single-gene models and environment alone cannot fully explain the emergence of functional asymmetries in humans. © 2013 Taylor & Francis.

Evolutionary concepts such as adaptation and maladaptation have been used by neuroscientists to explain brain properties and mechanisms. In particular, one of the most compelling characteristics of the brain, known as neuroplasticity, denotes the ability of the brain to continuously adapt its functional and structural organization to changing requirements. Although brain plasticity has evolved to favor adaptation, there are cases in which the same mechanisms underlying adaptive plasticity can turn into maladaptive changes. Here, we will consider brain plasticity and its functional and structural consequences from an evolutionary perspective, discussing cases of adaptive and maladaptive plasticity and using examples from typical and atypical development. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.

Evidence suggests that spatial processing changes across time in naturally cycling women, which is likely due to neuromodulatory effects of steroid hormones. Yet, it is unknown whether crossmodal spatial processes depend on steroid hormones as well. In the present experiment, the crossmodal congruency task was used to assess visuo-tactile interactions in naturally cycling women, women using hormonal contraceptives and men. Participants adopted either a crossed or uncrossed hands posture. It was tested whether a postural effect of hand crossing on multisensory interactions in the crossmodal congruency task is modulated by women's cycle phase. We found that visuotactile interactions changed according to cycle phase. Naturally cycling women showed a significant difference between the menstrual and the luteal phase for crossed, but not for uncrossed hands postures. The two control groups showed no test sessions effects. Regression analysis revealed a positive relation between estradiol levels and the size of crossmodal congruency effects (CCE), indicating that estradiol seems to have a neuromodulatory effect on posture processing. © 2013 Ocklenburg, Wolf, Heed, Ball, Cramer, Röder and Güntürkün.

People treated for bilateral congenital cataracts offer a model to study the influence of visual deprivation in early infancy on visual and multisensory development. We investigated cross-modal integration capabilities in cataract patients using a simple detection task that provided redundant information to two different senses. In both patients and controls, redundancy gains were consistent with coactivation models, indicating an integrated processing of modality-specific information. This finding is in contrast with recent studies showing impaired higher-level multisensory interactions in cataract patients. The present results suggest that basic cross-modal integrative processes for simple short stimuli do not depend on visual and/or crossmodal input since birth.

Previous research has shown that redundant information in faces and voices leads to faster emotional categorization compared to incongruent emotional information even when attending to only one modality. The aim of the present study was to test whether these crossmodal effects are predominantly due to a response conflict rather than interference at earlier, e.g. perceptual processing stages. In Experiment 1, participants had to categorize the valence and rate the intensity of happy, sad, angry and neutral unimodal or bimodal face-voice stimuli. They were asked to rate either the facial or vocal expression and ignore the emotion expressed in the other modality. Participants responded faster and more precisely to emotionally congruent compared to incongruent face-voice pairs in both the Attend Face and in the Attend Voice condition. Moreover, when attending to faces, emotionally congruent bimodal stimuli were more efficiently processed than unimodal visual stimuli. To study the role of a possible response conflict, Experiment 2 used a modified paradigm in which emotional and response conflicts were disentangled. Incongruency effects were significant even in the absence of response conflicts. The results suggest that emotional signals available through different sensory channels are automatically combined prior to response selection.

Change blindness, the surprising inability of people to detect significant changes between consecutively-presented visual displays, has recently been shown to affect tactile perception as well. Visual change blindness has been observed during saccades and eye blinks, conditions under which people's awareness of visual information is temporarily suppressed. In the present study, we demonstrate change blindness for suprathreshold tactile stimuli resulting from the execution of a secondary task requiring bodily movement. In Experiment 1, the ability of participants to detect changes between two sequentially-presented vibrotactile patterns delivered on their arms and legs was compared while they performed a secondary task consisting of either the execution of a movement with the right arm toward a visual target or the verbal identification of the target side. The results demonstrated that a motor response gave rise to the largest drop in perceptual sensitivity (as measured by changes in d′) in detecting changes to the tactile display. In Experiment 2, we replicated these results under conditions in which the participants had to detect tactile changes while turning a steering wheel instead. These findings are discussed in terms of the role played by bodily movements, sensory suppression, and higher order information processing in modulating people's awareness of tactile information across the body surface. © 2009 Elsevier Inc.

Behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) studies have shown that spatial attention is gradually distributed around the center of the attentional focus. The present study compared uni- and crossmodal gradients of spatial attention to investigate whether the orienting of auditory and visual spatial attention is based on modality specific or supramodal representations of space. Auditory and visual stimuli were presented from five speaker locations positioned in the right hemifield. Participants had to attend to the innermost or outmost right position in order to detect either visual or auditory deviant stimuli. Detection rates and event-related potentials (ERPs) indicated that spatial attention is distributed as a gradient. Unimodal spatial ERP gradients correlated with the spatial resolution of the modality. Crossmodal spatial gradients were always broader than the corresponding unimodal spatial gradients. These results suggest that both modality specific and supramodal spatial representations are activated during orienting attention in space.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) can be used in multisensory research to determine the point in time when different senses start to interact, for example, the auditory and the visual system. For this purpose, the ERP to bimodal stimuli (AV) is often compared to the sum of the ERPs to auditory (A) and visual (V) stimuli: AV - (A + V). If the result is non-zero, this is interpreted as an indicator for multisensory interactions. Using this method, several studies have demonstrated auditory-visual interactions as early as 50 ms after stimulus onset. The subtraction requires that A, V, and AV do not contain common activity: This activity would be subtracted twice from one ERP and would, therefore, contaminate the result. In the present study, ERPs to unimodal, bimodal, and trimodal auditory, visual, and tactile stimuli (T) were recorded. We demonstrate that (T + TAV) - (TA + TV) is equivalent to AV - (A + V), but common activity is eliminated because two ERPs are subtracted from two others. With this new comparison technique, the first auditory-visual interaction starts around 80 ms after stimulus onset for the present experimental setting. It is possible to apply the new comparison method to other brain imaging techniques, as well, e.g. functional magnetic resonance imaging.

When participants have to respond to stimuli of two modalities, faster reaction times are observed for simultaneous, bimodal events than for unimodal events (the redundant target effect [RTE]). This finding has been interpreted as reflecting processing gains for bimodal relative to unimodal stimuli, possibly due to multisensory interactions. In random stimulus sequences, reaction times are slower when the stimulus is preceded by a stimulus of a different modality (modality switch effect [MSE]). Simple reaction time redundant target experiments with auditory-visual, visual-tactile, and auditory-tactile stimulus combinations were run to determine whether the RTE may be partly explained by MSEs because bimodal stimuli do not require a modality switch. In all three modality pairings, significant MSEs and RTEs were observed. However, the RTE was still significant after reaction times were corrected for the MSE, supporting the hypothesis that coactivation occurs independently of modality switch costs.

Komplexe aus entgegengesetzt geladenen Polyelektrolyten haben sowohl in der Biologie als auch in den Materialwissenschaften eine große Bedeutung. Im Mittelpunkt des Interesses stehen besonders die Kondensation der DNA in vitro, die Struktur des Nukleosoms im Zellkern, nicht-virale Systeme zur Transfektion von DNA in Zellen oder der Vorgang der layer-by-layer Adsorption. Verschiedene Theorien befassen sich mit den treibenden Kräften solcher Komplexbildungen. Allerdings standen experimentelle Untersuchungen auf diesem Gebiet bisher noch aus. Dieser Arbeit liegt die Fragestellung zu Grunde, ob es mit Hilfe der Rasterkraftmikroskopie möglich ist, die Struktur einzelner Polyelektrolytkomplexe, bestehend aus den beiden Polyelektrolyten DNA und dendronisierten Polymer, aufzuklären und ihre Komplexbildung zu untersuchen. Die Komplexe bildeten sich in Lösung und wurden anschließend auf einer unbeschichteten oder mit positiven Polymeren beschichteten Glimmeroberfläche adsorbiert. Auf der positiv beschichteten Glimmeroberfläche hafteten DNA-dendronisierte Polymer Komplexe mit einem Ladungsverhältnis von 1:1 bis 1:0.7 (DNA:dendronisiertes Polymer). Anhand der hochaufgelösten rasterkraftmikroskopischen Aufnahmen wurde ein Modell entwickelt, das die Umwicklung der DNA um das dendronisierte Polymer beschreibt. Der DNA-DNA Abstand ergab sich zu (2.30 ± 0.27) nm für den Komplex mit DNA und zweiter Generation dendronisierter Polymere und zu (2.16 ± 0.27) nm mit vierter Generation. Die theoretische Vorhersage der Überladung der Komplexe konnte experimentell bestätigt werden. Mit Hilfe der Rasterkraftmikroskopie konnte überdies der Einfluss des Salzgehaltes der Lösung auf die Bildung der Komplexe mit DNA und zweiter Generation dendronisierter Polymere untersucht werden. Wie man anhand des Zusammenwirkens von elektrostatischen Kräften und entropischen Wechselwirkungen bei der Adsorption von Polyelektrolyten vorhersagen kann, durchlief der DNA-DNA Abstand ein Minimum bei ansteigendem Sal, Complexes of oppositely charged polyelectrolytes play an important role in both biology and material science, for instance DNA condensation in vitro, nucleosomal structure, non-viral gene transfection systems as well as layer-by-layer adsorption. Although there are theories predicting overcharging of polyelectrolyte complexes, the driving forces are still under debate and systematic experimental studies on single polyelectrolytes remain challenging. Therefore the question arose if it is possible to analyze single polyelectrolyte complexes, using DNA and dendronized polymers, with the scanning force microscope in order to investigate the complexation in detail. For the complex analysis, the polyelectrolytes were allowed to interact in solution and then to adsorb on negatively charged mica or on mica coated with a positively charged polymer. Scanning force microscopy was used to investigate the adsorbed species. DNA/dendronized polymer complexes of charge ratio of 1/1 through 1/0.7 adsorbed on mica coated with a positively charged polymer. The analysis of high resolution molecular images indicated that DNA wraps around the dendronized polymer with an estimated pitch of (2.30 ± 0.27) nm and (2.16 ± 0.27) nm for dendronized polymers of generation two and four, respectively. In the proposed model the polyelectrolyte with the smaller linear charge density is wrapped around the more highly charged dendronized polymer, resulting in a negatively overcharged complex. This overcharging is consistent within recent theories of spontaneous overcharging of complexes of one polyelectrolyte wrapping around the other. Using the complex of DNA and dendronized polymers of second generation, the influence of monovalent salt concentration on the molecular structure was studied. By increasing the salt concentration the pitch showed a minimum as predicted by the interplay of electrostatic forces and entropic interactions of polyelectrolyte adsorption. At high salt concentration (2.4 M NaCl