Multisensory Integration

The neural and perceptual process by which the brain combines information from different sensory modalities — sight, hearing, touch, proprioception — into a unified percept. Integration relies on temporal and spatial binding windows that widen with age: older adults tolerate larger asynchronies between, say, a sound and its visual source before perceiving them as separate events. This neurocognitive aging affects how multisensory interfaces should be designed: tightly synchronized feedback that works for younger users can feel chaotic or overwhelming for older users, whose integration precision has declined. Reduced integration precision is also associated with dementia and some neurodevelopmental conditions.