Audiovisual integration of identity information from the face and voice: behavioural fMRI and MEG studies.

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Often when we hear a voice we create an image of the speaker which turns out to be quite wrong when we see the face. This is because our brain combines information from the face and voice of persons to make better estimates of a person's characteristics and allow better, more efficient social interactions. But how the brain combines information on a person's identity from her face and voice is poorly understood. In this project we combine a range of state-of-the-art techniques (face and voice morphing, magnetic resonance imaging, magnetoencephalography) to investigate the brain mechanisms of audiovisual integration of identity information. Participants will be played video clips showing a person saying a simple syllable in which the face and voice contain similar or different identity information (e.g., Bob's voice with Sam's face), and be asked to categorise the person's identity (e.g., Bob vs. Sam). While they perform this task, participants' brain activity will be measured with very high, millisecond and millimetre precision. The results will allow us to understand how two sensory modalities - audition and vision - are integrated in our brain during a task important in our everyday social interactions. They will advance our understanding of how the brain recognizes persons from their face and voice, with important potential outcome for hearing impaired persons and impact on the growing technology for automated person recognition.