Simulating a virtual target in depth through the invariant relation between optics, acoustics, and inertia

Research on multimodal perception (e.g., of objects in depth) has focused mainly on modal information (e.g., cues) and their integration at some levels of the central nervous system. Nevertheless, animal-environment interactions have simultaneous consequences on several energies (not to say all) that stimulate our perceptual systems. Thus these interactions provide structure not solely to individual energies but also to the way each energy varies relatively to the others (Stoffregen & Bardy, 2001). This relation across energies contains important intermodal information that is available as is any other within-modal pattern investigated so far. We decided to test that intermodal specification hypothesis in the context of egocentric distance perception. The idea is (i) to formalize and manipulate how distance is specified across optics, acoustics and inertias and (ii) to test whether it is perceived and used by humans.