Multimodal integration in behaving chickens

Abstract

In everyday life we constantly perceive and discriminate between a large variety of sensory inputs, the vast majority of which consist of more than one modality. We performed two experiments to investigate whether chickens use the information present in multimodal signals. To test whether audiovisual stimuli are better detected than visual or acoustic stimuli alone, we first measured the detection threshold with a staircase paradigm. We found that chickens were able to detect weaker stimuli using audiovisual stimuli. Next, we tested whether the multimodal nature of a stimulus also increases the discrimination between two stimuli by measuring the smallest difference that the animals could still distinguish from each other. We found that chickens can discriminate smaller differences using audiovisual stimuli in comparison to visual stimuli alone, but not in comparison to acoustic stimuli alone. Thus, even in a relatively unspecialized species such as the chicken, the benefits of multimodal integration are exploited for sensory processing.

Cross-Modal Stochastic Resonance as a Universal Principle to Enhance Sensory Processing

“…Furthermore, analogous to the above discussed somatosensory enhancement of auditory perception, visual perception at threshold can be enhanced by auditory stimulation (Caclin et al, 2011 ) and that even visual below threshold stimuli may be perceived through spatially converging audiovisual inputs (Bolognini et al, 2005 ). Such audiovisual cross-modal improvement of detection thresholds has been demonstrated in a broad range of different species, e.g., the ferret (Hollensteiner et al, 2015 ) or the chicken (Verhaal and Luksch, 2016 ).…”

Echo-acoustic and optic flow interact in bats

“…This so-called multimodal integration has been demonstrated for many different animal models and for a number of different senses in behavioural and neurophysiological studies (e.g. Gottfried and Dolan, 2003;Stein, 1983, 1986;Verhaal and Luksch, 2016;Winkowski and Knudsen, 2007). Although often disregarded, many bats can rely on vision under dim light conditions (Bell and Fenton, 1986;Bradbury and Nottebohm, 1969;Danilovich et al, 2015;Eklöf, 2003;Horowitz et al, 2004;Orbach and Fenton, 2010;Rother and Schmidt, 1982), and even ultraviolet light sensitivity has been demonstrated (Müller et al, 2009;Winter et al, 2003).…”

Anatomy and Physiology of Neurons in Layer 9 of the Chicken Optic Tectum

“…Audio-visual integration has been well documented in the optic tectum of specialists such as the barn owl (Knudsen, 1982) but also behaviorally in other species, including generalists such as the chicken (Verhaal and Luksch, 2016a). In both species, the external nucleus of the inferior colliculus projects to the optic tectum (Niederleitner et al, 2017).…”