Intersensory influences on the perception of apparent movement

Abstract

Previous findings on intermodal apparent movement indicate that intersensory effect in it is asymmetric with respect to acoustic and visual systems. It has also been suggested that the difference between the latencies for the light stimulus and for the sound stimulus may coincide with the point of maximum facilitation in perception. The present study examined whether stimulation of the visual and auditory modalities acted symmetrically or reciprocally in their influence on each other under the different stimulus-onset asynchronies in apparent motion. The results were as follows: (1) Intersensory effect was asymmetric with respect to acoustic and visual systems, that is, only the effect of visual stimulus on auditory apparent movement was found. (2) There were two kinds in this effect: suppression in the shorter range of SOA and facilitation in the longer range. (3) The difference between the latencies for the single stimuli had no influences on likelihood of perceived movement. These findings are discussed along the transsensory view.Key words: intermodal apparent movement, difference between latencies for stimulus, asymmetrical effect, the transsensory view.

Cross-Modal Dynamic Capture: Congruency Effects in the Perception of Motion Across Sensory Modalities.

“…On the other hand, directionally conflicting auditory motion had no effect on the perceived direction of visual apparent motion, thus replicating Meyer and Wuerger's (2001) findings, but here using a very different methodology. This asymmetry coincides with the results of the majority of previous research investigating multisensory influences in apparent motion perception (Allen & Kolers, 1981;Anstis, 1973;Ohmura, 1987) as well as in other intersensory biases involving the perception of spatial stimulus attributes (e.g., Welch, 1999). Note that, in their study, Meyer and Wuerger observed that directionally conflicting auditory motion caused a decrement in the accuracy of visual motion direction discrimination.…”

“…Critically, in their experiments, concurrent visual apparent motion did not influence the perception of auditory motion any more than did a single light flash. Allen and Kolers therefore concluded that it was the temporal arrangement, and not the spatiotemporal arrangement, that was crucial to cross-modal interactions in apparent motion (see also Ohmura, 1987;Staal & Donderi, 1983, for similar results).…”

“…In the present study, we take a step toward addressing this shortcoming by investigating multisensory interactions involved in the perception of motion. Only a handful of studies have addressed the question of whether the perceived direction of motion of stimuli in one sensory modality can be modulated by the presence of motion information in another modality (e.g., Allen & Kolers, 1981; Aspell, Bramwell, & Hurlbert, 2000; Kitajima & Yamashita, 1999; Meyer & Wuerger, 2001; Ohmura, 1987; Soto-Faraco, Lyons, Gazzaniga, Spence, & Kingstone, 2002; Staal & Donderi, 1983; Zapparoli & Reatto, 1969). In one of the first attempts to address intersensory influences between two moving events, Zapparoli and Reatto (1969) combined auditory and visual apparent motion displays that could move in the same or opposite directions.…”

The Effect of Brief Auditory Stimuli on Visual Apparent Motion

“…Since the neural processing of visual information is delayed compared to that of auditory information (eg King and Palmer 1985), sound and light will not be perceived as being simultaneous. However, a follow-up study of Ohmura (1987), which took account of the different perceptual latencies by presenting the sound shortly after the first light, confirmed this result. Thus, it seems that the facilitation effect occurs only with sounds being midway between the lights, ie when the sound could act as a link between the visual stimuli.…”

A Comparison of Auditory and Visual Apparent Motion Presented Individually and with Crossmodal Moving Distractors

“…If the auditory stimuli are asynchronous, however, less visual AM is reported (Gilbert 1939). Others reported that visual AM was not facilitated by concurrent auditory AM but visual AM did facilitate auditory AM (Allen and Kolers 1981;Mateeff et al 1985;Ohmura 1987). Zapparoli and Reatto (1969) found that the direction of visual motion determined whether auditory AM was facilitated and interfered with.…”