Causal inference about stimulus location.

<p>(A–C) Schematized spatial paradigm employed by several studies on audio-visual causal inference. Brief and simple visual (flashes) and auditory (noise bursts) stimuli are presented at varying locations along azimuth and varying degrees of discrepancy across trials. When stimuli are presented with large spatial discrepancy (panel A), they are typically perceived as independent events and are processed separately. When they are presented with no or little spatial discrepancy (panel B), they are typically perceived as originating from the same source and their spatial evidence is integrated (fused). Finally, when the spatial discrepancy is intermediate (panel C), causal inference can result in partial integration: the perceived locations of the two stimuli are pulled towards each other but do not converge. Please note that the probability distributions corresponding to each panel are shown in the respective panels in <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002075#pbio.1002075.g001" target="_blank">Fig. 1</a>. (D) Schematized summary of the results by Rohe and Noppeney. Early sensory areas mostly reflect the unisensory evidence corresponding to segregated representations, posterior parietal regions reflect the fused spatial estimate, and more anterior parietal regions reflect the overall causal inference estimate. This distributed pattern of sensory representations demonstrates the progression of causal inference computations along the cortical hierarchy.