Sensory Delays and Simultaneity Perception

1. Sensory Delays and Simultaneity Perception Marieke Rohde Interview EPSRC LSI fellowship 11.03.2008 Swindon

2. Previous Track record • Marieke Rohde (fellow): • Education interdisciplinary: BSc Cognitive Science, MSc EASy, DPhil CS&AI. • Evolutionary Robotics; embodied and dynamical approaches in Cognitive Science; enaction. • Host: CCNR, University of Sussex • Ezequiel Di Paolo (co-PI) • Collaborators: MPIfBC in Tuebingen • Marc Ernst (co-PI)

3. Sensory Delays and Simultaneity Perception: Question • How do we perceive simultaneity? • Intersensory delays. • Compensation mechanisms plastic • Similar to visual displacement • No adaptation in earlier studies

4. Sensory Delays and Simultaneity Perception: Objective • Hypothesis: • Brain does not automatically correct for intermodal lags. • Time pressure + complex signal structure that allows anticipation are necessary to trigger adaptation to sensory delays. • Formally describe the dynamics of human adaptation to sensory delays using an interdisciplinary experimental and modelling approach.

5. Sensory Delays and Simultaneity Perception: Methods and Project Plan • Objectives: An interdisciplinary and embodied approach • Experimentally test : minimal conditions; modality dependence; role of previous knowledge; temporal ambiguity • Idealised Evolutionary Robotics modelling; dynamical principles of adaptation. • Implications for digital technology, adaptive robot control and perception research • Project Plan (6+18+12) • 6 months at Sussex: modelling, preparation, position paper. • 18 months at the MPIfBC: postdoctoral training + experimental work – some modelling, analysis and interdisciplinary integration. • 12 months at Sussex: Further data analysis, modelling and integration; Implications for Cognitive Science, HCI, Robotics.

6. Sensory Delays and Simultaneity Perception: Relevance and Results • By the end of a successful project: • Encompassing account of adaptation to sensory delays: Experimental and simulation results, sensorimotor contingencies. Perceptual experience. • Beneficiaries: • Perception research: embodied basis of time and simultaneity perception. • Robotics: formal account of adaptive principles can be used in engineering • HCI/Prosthetics: training methods + design principles for HCI and other digital technology that interfaces humans in real-time with computers • Cognitive Science: Methods for embodied and dynamical systems approaches • UK, CCNR, fellow, collaborators: competitiveness, networking, future research

7. EPSRC funding • Project between CCNR and MPIfBC – overseas and Life Science Interface • “Talented new researcher” • Postgraduate training • Realise and advance my work and ideas • Reviewers agree: • Significant and timely • Well planned and managed • Steering group commited and able to deliver • Collaboration with the MPI

8. Any questions?

9. References • Cunningham, D., Billock, V. and Tsou, B. (2001): Sensorimotor adaptation to violations of temporal contiguity. Psychological Science 12(6), 532-535. • Di Paolo, E., Rohde, M. and De Jaegher, H. (forthcoming): Horizons for the Enactive Mind: Values, Social Interaction, and Play. In J. Stewart, O. Gapenne and E. A. Di Paolo (eds), Enaction: Towards a New Paradigm for Cognitive Science, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. • Di Paolo, E., Rohde. M. and Iizuka, H. (forthcoming): Sensitivity to social contingency or stability of interaction? Modelling the dynamics of perceptual crossing. New Ideas in Psychology. Special issue on Dynamical Systems Approaches in Psychology. • Rohde, M. and Di Paolo, E. (2007): Adaptation to sensory delays. An evolutionary robotics model of an empirical study. Proceedings of the 9th European Conference on Artificial life ECAL 2007. Springer-Verlag • Rohde, M. and Gapenne, O. (2006): Proposition de protocoleexpérimental ARCo'06: Etude de l'adaptation aux délaissensorimoteurs. Submission (winning) to the experimental protocol competition at ARCo'06, 6.-8.12.2006 in Bordeaux, France.