Enactive perception

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Eckart Zimmermann
• Subject Area: Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
• Term: from 2020 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 449495537

• Final Report Year: 2025

Final Report Abstract

Perception is active. We explore our environment by moving around. However, when we move our body, head or eyes, we produce visual stimulation on the retina which does not reflect motion in the external world. This self-produced stimulation occurring contingently on our actions must be distinguished from stimulation that derives from objects in our environments. In the project „Enactive perception“ the question of how the brain processes sensorimotor contingencies was studied in six experiments. The first two experiments were devoted to the selfproduced visual motion on the retina when performing saccade eye movements. We found evidence for a novel theory about why we do not see the self-produced visual motion. Our results show that the sensorimotor system habituates to repeated exposure o intra-saccadic visual motion. We thus dissociate self-produced visual motion from external motion because the former is perfectly predictable and thus neglected. By performing saccades we also change the relationship between our internal representation of space and external space. In Experiment 3, visual localization of objects in space was measured around the time of saccade execution. We hypothesized that predictions about the self-produced visual motion during a saccade might also explain the mislocalization. However, our experiments did not support that hypothesis. Sensorimotor contingencies that occur during combined eyehead movements were studied in Experiment 4 in a virtual reality setup. In head-mounted displays we could manipulate the speed of the self-produced visual motion occurring during a head movement. We found that participants recalibrated their feeling of visual stability, i.e. their dissociation between self-produced and external motion, on a trial-by-trial basis. Experiment 5 addressed sensorimotor contingencies in goal-directed reaching movements. When pressing a button to produce a sound, we perceive a tactile stimulation when touching the object and we generate an auditory sensation. Our results showed that attention drawn to the tactile modality when processing the sensation of the touch explains the sensory attenuation for the selfproduced sound. 
 In conclusion, the results of the project „Enactive perception“ reveal that the sensorimotor system predicts sensorimotor contingencies occurring during eye, head and reaching movements. These predictions establish perceptual stability by reducing processing of self-produced sensory stimulation.

Link to the final report

https://psycharchives.org/en/item/06553d4e-b625-4f4a-a390-3d809352b508

Publications

• Saccade suppression of displacements, but not of contrast, depends on context. Journal of Vision, 22(10), 10.
  Zimmermann, Eckart & Lange, Joachim
  
• Tactile motor attention induces sensory attenuation for sounds. Consciousness and Cognition, 104, 103386.
  Fritz, Clara; Flick, Mayra & Zimmermann, Eckart
  
• Serial dependencies in visual stability during self-motion. Journal of Neurophysiology, 130(2), 447-457.
  Bayer, Manuel & Zimmermann, Eckart
  
• Temporal adaptation of sensory attenuation for self-touch. Experimental Brain Research, 241(9), 2333-2344.
  Fritz, Clara & Zimmermann, Eckart
  
• Active head movements contribute to spatial updating across gaze shifts. Royal Society Open Science, 11(8).
  Bayer, Manuel & Zimmermann, Eckart
  
• Prediction of sensorimotor contingencies generates saccadic omission. Current Biology, 34(14), 3215-3225.e4.
  Pomè, Antonella; Schlichting, Nadine; Fritz, Clara & Zimmermann, Eckart
  
• The roles of vision and proprioception in spatial tuning of sensory attenuation. Experimental Brain Research, 243(1).
  Fritz, Clara; Bayer, Manuel & Zimmermann, Eckart