Sound-induced flash illusion revisited

Abstract

Auditory-visual illusion occurs when visual information and auditory information integrates in the brain. This is conceived because auditory information has temporal superiority than visual information. Purpose of the study is to investigate mutuality influence of auditory information and visual information. Subjects answered the number of sounds and flashes when the auditory and visual stimuli are presented. We selected five auditory and visual stimuli (percentage answered as 2 times were 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%) from the auditory only and visual only case and combined the stimuli. Subjects answered the number of sounds and flashes when the stimuli are presented simultaneously. When comparing the rate of unilateral and bilateral case, auditory only case and a combination of ambiguous auditory stimuli and definite visual stimuli, auditory information tends to shift toward visual information. This result suggests that in this case, visual information has temporal superiority so auditory information can perceive slight difference because it is influenced by definite visual information and flash-induced sound illusion occurs. From this result, we can suggest that temporal illusion occurs from temporal ambiguity of stimuli rather than temporal resolution of modality.