Abstract
BackgroundVision provides the most salient information with regard to the stimulus motion. However, it has recently been demonstrated that static visual stimuli are perceived as moving laterally by alternating left-right sound sources. The underlying mechanism of this phenomenon remains unclear; it has not yet been determined whether auditory motion signals, rather than auditory positional signals, can directly contribute to visual motion perception.Methodology/Principal FindingsStatic visual flashes were presented at retinal locations outside the fovea together with a lateral auditory motion provided by a virtual stereo noise source smoothly shifting in the horizontal plane. The flash appeared to move by means of the auditory motion when the spatiotemporal position of the flashes was in the middle of the auditory motion trajectory. Furthermore, the lateral auditory motion altered visual motion perception in a global motion display where different localized motion signals of multiple visual stimuli were combined to produce a coherent visual motion perception.Conclusions/SignificanceThese findings suggest there exist direct interactions between auditory and visual motion signals, and that there might be common neural substrates for auditory and visual motion processing.
Highlights
The primate brain effectively associates or integrates information from different modalities in order to establish robust representations of the outer world [1,2]
In the first experiment (Experiment 1), we investigated how sound-induced visual motion (SIVM) occurred in a situation where the spatiotemporal position of the flashes was located in the middle of the trajectory of a lateral auditory motion provided by a virtual stereo noise source smoothly shifting in a horizontal plane (Figure 1B)
We found that a lateral auditory motion provided by a pair of cross-fading white noises smoothly shifting along a horizontal trajectory induced illusory visual motion perception (SIVM) even when the flash was presented in the middle of the trajectory of the sound shifts; the spatial position of the virtual sound source was perceived around the visual stimulus at the moment the flash was presented, and the laterality information of the sound could have little influence on the visual stimuli (Experiment 1)
Summary
The primate brain effectively associates or integrates information from different modalities in order to establish robust representations of the outer world [1,2]. With regard to audiovisual interaction in motion perception, the effect of visual motion information on auditory motion perception has been mainly reported. The adaptation made in response to moving visual stimuli induces a motion aftereffect in the auditory modality [4]. Moving visual stimuli capture the perceived motion direction of the auditory stimulus [5,6,7]. These findings suggest that there are common neural substrates to motion perception between the visual and auditory modalities [8]. Vision provides the most salient information with regard to the stimulus motion. The underlying mechanism of this phenomenon remains unclear; it has not yet been determined whether auditory motion signals, rather than auditory positional signals, can directly contribute to visual motion perception
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