From coordinate transformation to spatial integration in sensorimotor processing

We perceive touch first through activity of skin sensors that tell us where on the skin the touch occurred. Because our body can move freely, the location of a touch in the world must be determined by combining skin location with posture. I will show that manipulating the relationship between these different types of spatial reference frames in touch opens many doors to explore principles of multisensory integration, sensorimotor transformation, top-down control, and decision making. The experiments I present employ reference frame conflict during tactile localization while measuring simple responses and arm movements and produce data that can inform different types of psychological (such as diffusion and probabilistic) models.