Crossmodal Constraints on Human Perceptual Awareness: Auditory Semantic Modulation of Binocular Rivalry

Yi-Chuan Chen,Su-Ling Yeh,Charles Spence

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00212

Yi-Chuan Chen, Su-Ling Yeh + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00212

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Abstract

We report a series of experiments utilizing the binocular rivalry paradigm designed to investigate whether auditory semantic context modulates visual awareness. Binocular rivalry refers to the phenomenon whereby when two different figures are presented to each eye, observers perceive each figure as being dominant in alternation over time. The results demonstrate that participants report a particular percept as being dominant for less of the time when listening to an auditory soundtrack that happens to be semantically congruent with the other alternative (i.e., the competing) percept, as compared to when listening to an auditory soundtrack that was irrelevant to both visual figures (Experiment 1A). When a visually presented word was provided as a semantic cue, no such semantic modulatory effect was observed (Experiment 1B). We also demonstrate that the crossmodal semantic modulation of binocular rivalry was robustly observed irrespective of participants’ attentional control over the dichoptic figures and the relative luminance contrast between the figures (Experiments 2A and 2B). The pattern of crossmodal semantic effects reported here cannot simply be attributed to the meaning of the soundtrack guiding participants’ attention or biasing their behavioral responses. Hence, these results support the claim that crossmodal perceptual information can serve as a constraint on human visual awareness in terms of their semantic congruency.

Highlights

When viewing a scene, visual background context provides useful semantic information that can improve the identification of a visual object embedded within it, such as when the presentation of a kitchen scene facilitates a participant’s ability to identify a loaf of bread, say (e.g., Biederman, 1972; Palmer, 1975; Davenport and Potter, 2004; though see Hollingworth and Henderson, 1998)
The results of Experiment 1A demonstrate a crossmodal modulation on the proportion of dominance measure resulting from the auditory semantic context that was present in the binocular rivalry situation
Due to the fact that the participants were continuously receiving the auditory information during the test period in Experiment 1A while provided a semantic cue before the test period in Experiment 1B, we suggest that the crossmodal semantic congruency effect should be perceptual in nature rather than a conceptual effect

Summary

Introduction

Visual background context provides useful semantic information that can improve the identification of a visual object embedded within it, such as when the presentation of a kitchen scene facilitates a participant’s ability to identify a loaf of bread, say (e.g., Biederman, 1972; Palmer, 1975; Davenport and Potter, 2004; though see Hollingworth and Henderson, 1998). For example, when we are at the seaside, we perceive the blue sea and sky (hopefully), and the sound of the waves crashing onto the beach, not to mention the smell of the salty sea air Do such non-visual contextual cues influence the visual perception of semantically related objects? Observers typically perceive one of the figures as dominant (while often being unaware of the presence of the other figure); after a while, the dominance of the figures may reverse and keep alternating over time This perceptual alternation has been attributed to the fact that the visual system receives ambiguous information from the two eyes and tries to find a unique perceptual solution, and the information presented to each eye competes for control of the current conscious percept (see Alais and Blake, 2005, for a review). The fact that a constantly presented dichoptic figure induces alternating perceptual experiences in the binocular rivalry situation demonstrates the dynamic way in which the brain computes sensory information, a process that gives rise to a specific percept (e.g., Leopold and Logothetis, 1996)

Results

Discussion

Conclusion