Abstract
In this study, it is demonstrated that moving sounds have an effect on the direction in which one sees visual stimuli move. During the main experiment sounds were presented consecutively at four speaker locations inducing left or rightward auditory apparent motion. On the path of auditory apparent motion, visual apparent motion stimuli were presented with a high degree of directional ambiguity. The main outcome of this experiment is that our participants perceived visual apparent motion stimuli that were ambiguous (equally likely to be perceived as moving left or rightward) more often as moving in the same direction than in the opposite direction of auditory apparent motion. During the control experiment we replicated this finding and found no effect of sound motion direction on eye movements. This indicates that auditory motion can capture our visual motion percept when visual motion direction is insufficiently determinate without affecting eye movements.
Highlights
Each of our senses provides us with qualitatively different impressions about the objects and events that surround us
An analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that the direction of auditory motion significantly affected the percentage of trials in which a bistable visual stimulus was seen as moving rightward (F = 7.8, p < 0.003 Greenhouse–Geisser)
The ratio of left and rightward visual apparent motion perception was not found to differ between trials during which leftward auditory motion was presented and trials without auditory stimulation
Summary
Each of our senses provides us with qualitatively different impressions about the objects and events that surround us. It has been demonstrated that moving sounds can cause one to perceive a static visual stimulus as moving (Hidaka et al, 2009, 2011; Teramoto et al, 2010) and prolong binocular-dominance periods for moving visual stimuli with a congruent motion direction (Conrad et al, 2010). None of these studies, has measured eye movements. It is possible that previously shown effects of sound motion on visual motion perception are mediated by direction specific effects of sound motion on eye movements
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