Sensory Recruitment

Are you familiar with the term recruitment as it applies to absorbing sensory data? Recruitment can be defined as the enhancing of a sensory experience through the use of two or more senses (as compared to only one) when absorbing sensory data. For example, regardless of your sensory preference, you probably benefit from seeing a person’s face while communicating with him/her, especially if the surrounding environment is noisy. Looking at beautifully presented food often enhances the perception of its taste. Watching a person present a musical concert as you listen to the music may provide a very different experience to your brain when you listen to a CD of the concert later on. Studies in France have shown that multisensory integration is mediated by flexible, highly adaptive physiological processes that can take place very early in the sensory processing chain and that operate in both sensory-specific and nonspecific cortical structures in the brain in differing ways. Bottom line? Sensory recruitment often enhances your sensory experience as your brain absorbs incoming data in a way that does not occur when you receive the data primarily through only one sensory system.