Abstract
Vision is a physical sense, whereas olfaction and gustation are chemical senses. Active sensing might function in vision, olfaction, and gustation, whereas passive sensing might function in vision and olfaction but not gustation. To investigate whether each sensory property affected synchrony perception, participants in this study performed simultaneity judgment (SJ) for three cross-modal combinations using visual (red LED light), olfactory (coumarin), and gustatory (NaCl solution) stimuli. We calculated the half-width at half-height (HWHH) and point of subjective simultaneity (PSS) on the basis of temporal distributions of simultaneous response rates in each combination. Although HWHH did not differ significantly among three cross-modal combinations, HWHH exhibited a higher value in cross-modal combinations involving one or two chemical stimuli than in combinations of two physical stimuli, reported in a previous study. The PSS of the olfactory–visual combination was approximately equal to the point of objective simultaneity (POS), whereas the PSS of visual–gustatory, and olfactory–gustatory combinations receded significantly from the POS. In order to generalize these results as specific to chemical senses in regard to synchrony perception, we need to determine whether the same phenomena will be reproduced when performing SJ for various cross-modal combinations using visual, olfactory, and gustatory stimuli other than red LED light, coumarin, and NaCl solution.
Highlights
Stability of perception in everyday life is preserved by integration of multimodal information
When researchers examine synchrony perception in cross-modal combinations, they generally perform simultaneity judgment (SJ) task, in which participants report whether two stimuli are presented simultaneously (e.g., [1,2,3,4,5]), or temporal order judgment (TOJ) task, in which participants report the sensory modality of a stimulus that was perceived more rapidly than another one (e.g., [6,7,8,9,10])
These results demonstrated the validity of applying the temporal distribution of simultaneous response rates to a Gaussian distribution
Summary
Stability of perception in everyday life is preserved by integration of multimodal information. When researchers examine synchrony perception in cross-modal combinations, they generally perform simultaneity judgment (SJ) task, in which participants report whether two stimuli are presented simultaneously (e.g., [1,2,3,4,5]), or temporal order judgment (TOJ) task, in which participants report the sensory modality of a stimulus that was perceived more rapidly than another one (e.g., [6,7,8,9,10]). The sensory modalities used in these tasks have been limited to physical senses (visual, audio, and tactile sensations), and no studies of this kid have focused on chemical senses (olfactory, and gustatory sensations)
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