Multisensory learning profits from stimulus congruency at different levels of processing. In the current study, we sought to investigate whether multisensory learning can potentially be based on high-level feature congruency (same meaning) without perceptual congruency (same time) and how this relates to changes in brain function and behaviour. 50 subjects learned to decode Morse code (MC) either in unisensory or different multisensory manners. During unisensory learning, the MC was trained as sequences of auditory trains. For low-level congruent (perceptual) multisensory learning, MC was applied as tactile stimulation to the left hand simultaneously to the auditory stimulation. In contrast, high-level congruent multisensory learning involved auditory training, followed by the production of MC sequences requiring motor actions and thereby excludes perceptual congruency. After learning, group differences were observed within three distinct brain regions while processing unisensory (auditory) MC. Both types of multisensory learning were associated with increased activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus. Multisensory low-level learning elicited additional activation in the somatosensory cortex, while multisensory high-level learners showed a reduced activation in the inferior parietal lobule, which is relevant for decoding MC. Furthermore, differences in brain function associated with multisensory learning was related to behavioural reaction times for both multisensory learning groups. Overall, our data support the idea that multisensory learning is potentially based on high-level features without perceptual congruency. Furthermore, learning of multisensory associations involves neural representations of stimulus features involved in learning, but also share common brain activation (i.e. the right IFG), which seems to serve as a site of multisensory integration.

多感官学习从不同加工水平的刺激一致性中获益。在当前的研究中，我们试图调查多感官学习是否可能基于高级特征一致性（相同含义）而没有感知一致性（同时），以及这与大脑功能和行为的变化有何关系。50 名受试者学会了以单感官或不同的多感官方式解码莫尔斯电码 (MC)。在单感觉学习期间，MC 被训练为听觉训练序列。对于低水平的全等（感知）多感官学习，MC 被用作左手的触觉刺激，同时与听觉刺激。相比之下，高级一致的多感官学习涉及听觉训练，其次是需要运动动作的 MC 序列的产生，从而排除了知觉一致性。学习后，在处理单感觉（听觉）MC 时，在三个不同的大脑区域内观察到组差异。两种类型的多感官学习都与右侧额下回的激活增加有关。多感觉低级学习在躯体感觉皮层引起额外的激活，而多感觉高级学习者在顶叶下小叶中表现出减少的激活，这与解码 MC 相关。此外，与多感官学习相关的大脑功能差异与两个多感官学习组的行为反应时间有关。全面的，我们的数据支持多感官学习可能基于没有感知一致性的高级特征的想法。此外，多感官关联的学习涉及学习中所涉及的刺激特征的神经表征，但也共享共同的大脑激活（即正确的 IFG），这似乎是多感官整合的场所。