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Multisensory Processing: sometimes we integrate and sometimes we need to segregate.
SESSION CHAIR
Location: Alte Kornkammer - 1/15/26, 10:00 AM - 1/15/26, 10:30 AM (Europe/Berlin) (30 minutes)
Multisensory Processing: sometimes we integrate and sometimes we need to segregate.
John J. Foxe, PhD
Killian J. and Caroline F. Schmitt Chair in Neuroscience Director, Ernest J. Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience Director, Golisano Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities Institute Chair, Department of Neuroscience at University of Rochester
John J. Foxe, PhD
Killian J. and Caroline F. Schmitt Chair in Neuroscience Director, Ernest J. Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience Director, Golisano Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities Institute Chair, Department of Neuroscience at University of Rochester

John J. Foxe, Ph.D., is the Kilian J. and Caroline F. Schmitt Chair in Neuroscience and Professor and Chair of the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He serves as Director of the Ernest J. Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, the Golisano Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Institute, and the University of Rochester Center for Advanced Brain Imaging and Neurophysiology. Dr. Foxe is an internationally recognized leader in cognitive and systems neuroscience, with seminal contributions to the understanding of multisensory processing, attention, and neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders. He is Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Neuroscience and holds multiple adjunct and visiting professorships in the United States and Ireland. Dr. Foxe has published extensively, with over 44,000 citations and an H-index exceeding 110.

Multisensory environments require the brain to flexibly integrate or segregate information across sensory modalities to guide efficient behavior. Recent work has sought to clarify the mechanisms underlying multisensory evidence accumulation, integration, and their variability across development and clinical populations. Using combined neural and behavioral measures, evidence indicates that auditory and visual signals are initially accumulated by distinct processes, which can converge sub-additively onto a shared motor decision mechanism depending on task demands. This challenges simplistic accounts of early sensory fusion and highlights the role of decision-level integration. Developmental and clinical findings further demonstrate that multisensory processing is dynamic: while children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show deficits in basic audiovisual integration, these impairments are not evident in adults, suggesting delayed maturation rather than permanent dysfunction. Computational modeling reveals a developmental transition from competitive to facilitative multisensory interactions that occurs later in ASD and is influenced by sensory weighting and prior cross-modal context. Finally, classic behavioral evidence for multisensory facilitation, such as the redundant signals effect, may be confounded by attentional switching costs in commonly used experimental designs. When modality-switching demands are controlled, apparent multisensory speeding largely reflects unisensory slowing rather than true co-activation. Together, these findings underscore the importance of task structure, developmental stage, and cognitive context in shaping multisensory processing and challenge prevailing assumptions about obligatory multisensory integration.