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

通常，当我们听到一个声音时，我们会对说话者产生一种印象，而当我们看到面孔时，这种印象就完全错误了。这是因为我们的大脑结合了来自人的面部和声音的信息，以更好地估计一个人的特征，并允许更好，更有效的社交互动。但是，大脑如何从一个人的面部和声音中组合信息来识别她的身份，人们对此知之甚少。在这个项目中，我们联合收割机的一系列国家的最先进的技术（面部和声音变形，磁共振成像，脑磁图），以调查视听整合的身份信息的大脑机制。参与者将播放视频剪辑，显示一个人说一个简单的音节，其中面部和声音包含相似或不同的身份信息（例如，Bob的声音与Sam的脸），并被要求对该人的身份进行分类（例如，Bob vs. Sam）.当他们执行这项任务时，参与者的大脑活动将以非常高的毫秒和毫米精度进行测量。这些结果将使我们能够理解两种感觉方式-听觉和视觉-在我们日常社会交往中的重要任务中如何整合到我们的大脑中。它们将促进我们对大脑如何从面部和声音识别人的理解，对听力受损者具有重要的潜在结果，并对不断发展的自动识别技术产生影响。

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.