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Publications

Journal Article Epublish

PubMed: 41054536 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.113341

Contribution of auditory distance cues to size constancy in perception and grasping in restricted viewing.

iScience 28(9):113341

Authors: Chao Zheng, Gexiu Wang, Xiaoming Zhou, Jie Gao, Irene Sperandio, Melvyn A Goodale, Juan Chen

Affiliations

  • Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510631, China. Center for the Study of Applied Psychology, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, and the School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510631, China. Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China.
  • Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province 510631, China.
  • Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics of Ministry of Education, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, School of Life Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
  • Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, 38068 Rovereto, TN, Italy.
  • Western Institute for Neuroscience and the Department of Psychology, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 5C2, Canada.

Abstract

When vision is restricted, proprioceptive distance cues fully restore size constancy for scaling grip aperture when grasping objects, despite only limited improvement in perceptual judgments of object size. This suggests that specific task demands and associated neural mechanisms determine the relative weighting of cues during multisensory integration. Is this specific to proprioceptive cues? Here, we examined the contribution of auditory information to perception and action systems under restricted viewing conditions. Surprisingly, in contrast to proprioception, providing auditory distance information had no impact whatsoever on size constancy in grasping but did improve perceptual judgments of size. After participants received extensive training in discriminating distance from auditory cues, there was a modest improvement in grip scaling. Taken together, we suggest that the neural mechanisms mediating grasping cannot incorporate distance information from audition as easily as they can from proprioception when computing real-world object size, but this ability can be improved with training.

MeSH

Perception, Proprioception