Abstract
Previous studies show that visual motion perception can be altered by auditory stimuli; for example, a sound burst in phase with a virtual visual collision can bias the perception of motion (Rosenthal et al., 2009). In relation to shape perception, Plass et al. (2013), showed that crossmodal interactions biased awareness in a binocular rivalry setup. Here we investigated if auditory-visual synchrony plays a role in crossmodal awareness of visual motion using a CFS task. We presented to the non dominant eye a clockwise-rotational apparent motion display at a10 Hz frame rate (producing robust apparent motion), and a mondrian composed of random pieces of the apparent motion display to the dominant eye. Participants reported if they perceived either the coherent motion or the mondrian in 7 seconds trials under four conditions: synchronous (a 10 ms burst of white noise was in phase with the frame rate); asynchronous (the burst was in antiphase with the frame rate); no sound (no burst was presented); and catch trials (simulated rivalry). We found that dominance of apparent motion is boosted when synchronized with a sound burst; when the sound is asynchronous with the motion display, dominance is similar to the no sound condition. These results suggest that timing is an important factor in awareness of crossmodal binding.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2014