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FB Kolloquium 24: Fulvio Domini

„The coordinated behavior of perception and action is based on a distorted representation of 3D space”

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Prof. Dr. Fulvio Domini, Brown University, USA
„The coordinated behavior of perception and action is based on a distorted representation of 3D space”

Perception is commonly thought of as a process solving the inverse geome-try problem: given the sensory input and prior knowledge about the world, the brain derives an accurate representation of physical reality. This naïve realist view is also the hallmark of the dual-visual-stream theory of per-ception and action: when perception is distorted because of ambiguous or con-flicting visual cues our actions seem to be accurate. In this talk I argue that both perception and action are based on the same 3D representation, which in gen-eral does not mirror physical reality. Instead of being distinct I propose that perception and action form a coordinated system: Perception informs action about the state of the world and, in turn, action shapes perception by signaling when it is faulty. This integrated approach is quite distinct from most investi-gations on perception and motor control. On the one hand, while motor errors have been studied extensively in the sensorimotor adaptation field, they have overlooked how perception actually affects these errors. Indeed, I’ll show that the visual space is systematically distorted and that these distortions clearly surface in our actions. Remarkably the arising motor errors produce motor ad-justments on a trial-by-trial basis. On the other hand, studies exploring altera-tions of visual percepts following visuomotor interactions have neglected the causal role of error signals. Here, I will also show that persisting sensory er-rors signals cause a remarkable modification of space perception. In summary, contrary to the naïve realist view and the dual-visual-stream theory, my ap-proach regards perception and action as two sides of the same coin expressing a currency which is not metric accuracy.