Abstract
ObjectiveDetection and identification of moving targets is of paramount importance in everyday life, even if it is not widely tested in optometric practice, mostly for technical reasons. There are clear indications in the literature that in perception of moving targets, vision and hearing interact, for example in noisy surrounds and in understanding speech. The main aim of visual perception, the ability that optometry aims to optimize, is the identification of objects, from everyday objects to letters, but also the spatial orientation of subjects in natural surrounds. To subserve this aim, corresponding visual and acoustic features from the rich spectrum of signals supplied by natural environments have to be combined. MethodsHere, we investigated the influence of an auditory motion stimulus on visual motion detection, both with a concrete (left/right movement) and an abstract auditory motion (increase/decrease of pitch). ResultsWe found that incongruent audiovisual stimuli led to significantly inferior detection compared to the visual only condition. Additionally, detection was significantly better in abstract congruent than incongruent trials. For the concrete stimuli the detection threshold was significantly better in asynchronous audiovisual conditions than in the unimodal visual condition. ConclusionWe find a clear but complex pattern of partly synergistic and partly inhibitory audio–visual interactions. It seems that asynchrony plays only a positive role in audiovisual motion while incongruence mostly disturbs in simultaneous abstract configurations but not in concrete configurations. As in speech perception in hearing-impaired patients, patients suffering from visual deficits should be able to benefit from acoustic information.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.