Multisensory processing for perception and action

我们能用手来改善我们的视力吗？“看”这个词通常指的是视觉，但看最好被认为是一种动手的、多感官的活动。我的实验旨在揭示为什么我们喜欢将手放在或靠近我们正在看的东西上，即使触摸似乎没有提供任何信息（例如，当我们触摸我们正在阅读的页面时）。到目前为止，我的实验表明，当东西在我们手中或附近，或者放在我们知道如何使用的工具附近时，我们能看得更清楚。拟议的实验将研究这种近手优势在多大程度上可以用注意力来解释，或者是否可以用与触觉感觉系统相关的资源来解释。拟议中的实验还将研究可能负责近手优势的大脑区域。通过了解手可以增强视力的方式，这项研究将有助于康复专家开发替代和增强策略（包括高科技和低科技）来治疗脑损伤患者。

Can we use our hands to improve our vision? The term "looking" typically refers to vision, but looking is best thought of as a hands-on, multisensory event. My experiments are designed to reveal why we like to place our hands on or near the things we are looking at, even when touch seemingly provides no information (e.g. when we touch the page we are reading). So far, my experiments have shown that we can see things better when they are in or near our hands or when they are presented near a tool that we know how to use well. The proposed experiments will study the degree to which this near-hand advantage can be explained by attention or if it can be explained by resources linked to the touch sensory system. The proposed experiments will also study the brain areas that may be responsible for the near-hand advantage. By learning about the ways in which the hands can augment vision, this research will be useful to rehabilitation specialists as they develop alternative and augmentative strategies (both high- and low-tech) for treating people with brain injuries.