Brighter noise: Sensory enhancement of perceived loudness by concurrent visual stimulation

Abstract

Two experiments investigated the effect of concurrently presented light on the perceived loudness of a low-level burst of white noise. The results suggest two points. First, white noise presented with light tends to be rated as louder than noise presented alone. Second, the enhancement in loudness judgments is resistant to two experimental manipulations: varying the probability that light accompanies sound and shifting from a rating method to a forced choice comparison. Both manipulations were previously shown to eliminate a complementary noise-induced enhancement in ratings of brightness. Whereas noise-induced enhancement of brightness seems to reflect a late-stage decisional process, such as a response bias, the present results suggest that light-induced enhancement of loudness may reflect an early-stage sensory interaction.

Dynamic characteristics of multisensory facilitation and inhibition

“…In a bimodal setting, Chen and Yeh (2009) showed that the perception of visual events was enhanced by accompaniment with auditory stimulation, thus supporting the facilitation effect of sound on vision. Similarly, Odgaard et al (2004) showed that concurrent visual stimulation could enhance the loudness of auditory white noise, and Arabzadeh et al (2008) confirmed that a visual stimulation could improve the discrimination of somatosensory stimulation, thus providing support for the facilitation effect of vision on both auditory and somatosensory modalities. Some researchers have also analyzed multisensory facilitation using electrophysiological methods at both the cortical level and neuronal level (Jiang et al 2002;McDonald et al 2003;Molholm et al 2002;Rowland et al 2007).…”

Vibrotactile–Auditory Interactions are Post-Perceptual

“…Nonetheless, a number of studies have yielded results compatible with early sensory interactions between stimuli from two sensory modalities. For example, the presence of a light can make white noise sound louder (Odgaard et al, 2004) and improve detection of threshold stimuli (Lovelace et al, 2003) in a manner consistent with an early sensory interaction. However, the opposite effect (white noise making a light seem brighter) appears to be the result of a response bias or other post-sensory process (Odgaard et al, 2003).…”

Binaural loudness summation for speech presented via earphones and loudspeaker with and without visual cues

“…Odgaard et al (2004) showed that white noise presented with light tends to be rated as louder than noise presented alone. Because listeners in the present experiment were positioned in front of a lighted 17 inch flat-panel monitor for all the measurements, the influence of brightness would have been about constant for all measurements.…”