Sensory substitution reveals a manipulation bias

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 11; no. 1; p. 5940
• Main Authors: Zai, Anja T., Cavé-Lopez, Sophie, Rolland, Manon, Giret, Nicolas, Hahnloser, Richard H. R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 23.11.2020; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/378/1595/1396; 631/378/1662; 631/378/1788; 631/378/2619; 631/378/2629/2631; Animals; Auditory communication; Auditory Perception - physiology; Auditory stimuli; Basal Ganglia - physiology; Birds; Deafness; Feedback; Feedback, Sensory - physiology; Finches; Ganglia; Hearing; Humanities and Social Sciences; Learning - physiology; Life Sciences; Male; Motivation; multidisciplinary; Neurobiology; Neuronal Plasticity - physiology; Neurons and Cognition; Passeri; Reinforcement, Psychology; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sense organs; Sensory feedback; Sensory integration; Song; Songbirds; Substitutes; Visual perception; Visual Perception - physiology; Visual stimuli; Vocalization behavior; Vocalization, Animal - physiology
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19686-w

Sensory substitution is a promising therapeutic approach for replacing a missing or diseased sensory organ by translating inaccessible information into another sensory modality. However, many substitution systems are not well accepted by subjects. To explore the effect of sensory substitution on voluntary action repertoires and their associated affective valence, we study deaf songbirds to which we provide visual feedback as a substitute of auditory feedback. Surprisingly, deaf birds respond appetitively to song-contingent binary visual stimuli. They skillfully adapt their songs to increase the rate of visual stimuli, showing that auditory feedback is not required for making targeted changes to vocal repertoires. We find that visually instructed song learning is basal-ganglia dependent. Because hearing birds respond aversively to the same visual stimuli, sensory substitution reveals a preference for actions that elicit sensory feedback over actions that do not, suggesting that substitution systems should be designed to exploit the drive to manipulate. The challenge of sensory substitution as a therapeutic approach is to design systems that are well accepted by subjects. Here, in deaf songbirds, the authors substitute hearing with vision, suggesting substitution devices could provide sensory feedback for the key actions that are deprived.