Audio-visual simultaneity judgments

Abstract

The relative spatiotemporal correspondence between sensory events affects multisensory integration across a variety of species; integration is maximal when stimuli in different sensory modalities are presented from approximately the same position at about the same time. In the present study, we investigated the influence of spatial and temporal factors on audio-visual simultaneity perception in humans. Participants made unspeeded simultaneous versus successive discrimination responses to pairs of auditory and visual stimuli presented at varying stimulus onset asynchronies from either the same or different spatial positions using either the method of constant stimuli (Experiments 1 and 2) or psychophysical staircases (Experiment 3). The participants in all three experiments were more likely to report the stimuli as being simultaneous when they originated from the same spatial position than when they came from different positions, demonstrating that the apparent perception of multisensory simultaneity is dependent on the relative spatial position from which stimuli are presented.

Duration perception in crossmodally-defined intervals

“…In general, the psychophysical results of the present study are in line with the findings of previous work (Grondin & Rousseau, 1991;Zampini, Brown, et al, 2005;Zampini, Guest, et al, 2005). When testing for ordering effects of the modalities defining an interval, we find that intervals with an auditory onset are perceived to be longer than intervals with an auditory offset (i.e., audio-visual intervals are perceived longer than visual-audio and audio-tactile intervals longer than tactile-audio).…”

“…Across all modality pairs, we find a trend to overestimate short SOAs and to underestimate long SOAs which is consistent with the range effect reported by von Vierordt (1868). Furthermore, consistent with previous studies (Grondin & Rousseau, 1991;Zampini, Brown, et al, 2005;Zampini, Guest, et al, 2005), we find that intervals with an auditory onset are perceived to be longer than intervals with an auditory offset. For visualtactile intervals there is no difference in perceived duration depending on whether the visual or the tactile signal marks the onset of the interval.…”

“…In simultaneity judgments, for example, it was found that when presenting crossmodal signals such as brief light flashes, beeps, or tactile stimuli in physical simultaneity observers perceive them as occurring sequentially (Poliakoff, Shore, Lowe, & Spence, 2006;Zampini, Brown, Shore, Maravita, Röder and Spence, 2005;Zampini, Guest, Shore and Spence, 2005). Simultaneity of auditory and visual stimuli is commonly perceived when the visual stimulus precedes the auditory stimulus by about 20 to 30 ms (Zampini, Guest, et al, 2005), simultaneity of auditory and tactile stimuli is commonly perceived when the tactile stimulus precedes the auditory stimulus between 1.1 ms and 13.4 ms (Zampini, Brown, et al, 2005), and simultaneity between visual and tactile stimuli is commonly achieved when visual stimuli are presented 40 ms before tactile ones (Poliakoff et al, 2006).…”

Auditory, tactile, and multisensory cues facilitate search for dynamic visual stimuli

“…However, when the asynchronously presented auditory and visual stimuli are presented from different locations (i.e., when the auditory stimuli are presented via headphones while the visual stimuli are still presented in front of the participant), this results in changes in the perceptual latency of the auditory stimuli instead. Zampini et al (2005) also found that, when required to judge the simultaneity of auditory and visual stimuli, participants were more likely to report them as having been presented simultaneously when the stimuli were presented from the same spatial position than when they originated from different spatial positions.…”

“…Zampini, Guest, Shore, & Spence, 2005). The order of presentation of the blocks (spatially uninformative, spatially informative) was counterbalanced, and the blocks were presented in alternating order.…”