One of the most remarkable aspects of multimodal perception is its coherence. Our conscious perception is unified at any given moment, although we acquire information from diverse channels with... Show moreOne of the most remarkable aspects of multimodal perception is its coherence. Our conscious perception is unified at any given moment, although we acquire information from diverse channels with distinct transduction mechanisms, and process it in different cortical areas not necessarily at the same time and pace. The problem of how the brain integrates the different types of information, which are processed in distinct cortical regions to a unified event, is referred to in literature as the binding problem (Triesman, 1996). The current thesis reflects a gradual inquest in order to reveal different aspects of the binding mechanism across multimodal perception and action. The empirical evidence suggests that feature integration emerges in a graded manner through intra and inter connections within and across modalities and domains, employing general principles (such as temporal overlap of feature activation), which capture the role of attention, salience and dominance among the features and the domains. Also, control processes are important in handling retrieved traces for efficient use. Nevertheless, the binding mechanism does not require a conscious or unified perception and unified perception is not the outcome of feature binding. Show less
After experiencing distraction or temptation, people tend to be better able to cope with future conflict. In cognitive psychology, this is often shown by using sequential conflict tasks, such as... Show moreAfter experiencing distraction or temptation, people tend to be better able to cope with future conflict. In cognitive psychology, this is often shown by using sequential conflict tasks, such as the Stroop task, in which people are required to name the colour of the ink of a word, and ignore the word itself. After presentation of the word “red” in a green colour, for example, people show a smaller conflict effect if later shown the word “green” in a red colour. According to established theory, this is related to the working of executive control: initial conflict triggers increased attention (towards the colour instead of the word) or inhibition (of the word), thus making it easier to cope with repeated conflict. In this dissertation, I argue for a revision of this prominent theory towards a more memory based explanation of executive control. Instead of initial conflict working forward in time to affect the later task, the behavioural and psychophysiological experiments reported here show that the previous task is remembered due to the similarity with the current task, triggering similar modes of behaviour. Show less
