Back
Full-text
Journal article

Sensory substitution reveals a manipulation bias.

  • Zai AT Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland.
  • Cavé-Lopez S Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland.
  • Rolland M Institut des Neurosciences Paris Saclay, CNRS, Université Paris Saclay, Orsay, France.
  • Giret N Institut des Neurosciences Paris Saclay, CNRS, Université Paris Saclay, Orsay, France.
  • Hahnloser RHR Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland. rich@ini.ethz.ch.
  • 2020-11-24
Published in:
  • Nature communications. - 2020
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
General Physics and Astronomy
General Chemistry
English Sensory substitution is a promising therapeutic approach for replacing a missing or diseased sensory organ by translating inaccessible information into another sensory modality. However, many substitution systems are not well accepted by subjects. To explore the effect of sensory substitution on voluntary action repertoires and their associated affective valence, we study deaf songbirds to which we provide visual feedback as a substitute of auditory feedback. Surprisingly, deaf birds respond appetitively to song-contingent binary visual stimuli. They skillfully adapt their songs to increase the rate of visual stimuli, showing that auditory feedback is not required for making targeted changes to vocal repertoires. We find that visually instructed song learning is basal-ganglia dependent. Because hearing birds respond aversively to the same visual stimuli, sensory substitution reveals a preference for actions that elicit sensory feedback over actions that do not, suggesting that substitution systems should be designed to exploit the drive to manipulate.
Language
  • English
Open access status
gold
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/188524
Statistics
Document views: 42 File downloads:
  • Full-text: 0