Previous researchonmultisensoryintegrationduringgoal-directednaturalactionsreportedthatvisual,
proprioceptive,auditoryandorthonasalolfactorystimulationhastheabilitytoinfluencemotorcontrol.
In thisstudy,weusedkinematicstoinvestigatetheintegrationbetweenvisionandflavourperception
during reach-to-graspmovements.Participantswererequestedtodrinkasipofflavouredsolutionand
then graspanobjectpresentedincentralvision.Theresultsindicatethatwhentheobjectsevokedbythe
flavour andbythevisualtargetwereofasimilarsize(i.e.,largeorsmall)andevokedthesamekindof
hand shapinginordertobegrasped(i.e.,congruentcondition)facilitationeffectsemerged.Conversely,
when theobjectevokedbytheflavourandbythevisualtargetwasofadifferentsizeandevokeda
differentkindofhandshapinginordertobegrasped(i.e.,incongruentcondition)interferenceeffects
emerged.Interferenceeffects,however,wereonlyevidentforthecombinationinvolvingalargevisual
target anda‘small’flavour.Whencomparinghandkinematicsbetweenthecongruentanda‘noflavour’
condition(i.e.,water),facilitationeffectsemergedinfavouroftheformercondition.Takentogether,
these resultsindicatethecontributionofcomplexchemosensorystimulifortheplanningandexecution
of visuallyguidedreachtograspmovements.And,contributetothecurrentdebateregardingthe
multisensorynatureofthesensorimotortransformationsunderlyingmotorperformance.
