Audio-visual integration

Hearing and vision work collectively to provide spatial information on which we rely to interact with the environment. It is assumed that these interactions occur at early stages of the sensory pathways, ensuring the coordination of different sensory inputs. Eye movement-related eardrum oscillations (EMREOs) are rhythmic signals that are aligned to saccadic eye movements and reflect movements of the tympanic membrane. Although they have been consistently reported in humans and non-human primates and tested under different conditions, many questions regarding the phenomenology of EMREOs remain unresolved. We apply psychophysical and behavioral experiments, in- ear recordings, eye-tracking and hearing assessment techniques to extract EMREOs in human participants in order to investigate properties that improve our understanding of its origin (related to auditory and nervous systems anatomy) and functional significance (related to the coordination between vision and hearing to make sense of spatial information). Future plans include diversifying the testing conditions, adding more advanced assessment tools that allow these signals to be correlated with information from the brain, and including participants with hearing or visual pathologies.