Temporal recalibration of sensory signals: A time machine in the brain

Navarra Jordi

Our everyday experience tells us that multisensory information from the same event shares a single time. However, various physical circumstances (for instance, the fact that light and sound do not travel at the same speed) introduce asynchronies between sensory signals with a common origin. Far from being an objective fact, the perception of simultaneity is the result of a “subjective reconstruction” made by the brain. In my talk, I will attempt to uncover some of the mechanisms underlying this (still poorly understood) function of the brain.

Jordi Navarra’s research has been devoted to study the mechanisms underlying multisensory integration and auditory perception in healthy adults and infants. After his incorporation in Hospital Sant Joan de Déu (Barcelona), Jordi Navarra’s interests widened to include the study of perceptual and cognitive deficits in several neurological and psychiatric pathologies such as schizophrenia, ADHD, phenylketonuria, right parietal lesions, and Alzheimer’s disease. The combination of ‘basic’ and ‘clinically-oriented’ research has been essential for the consolidation of the Experimental Psychology and Brain Disorders Lab, shortly after Jordi Navarra’s return from a postdoctoral stay with Prof. Charles Spence at the University of Oxford.

More information on Jordi Navarra and his research can be found on his website.