Abstract
In the absence of other congruent multisensory motion cues, sound contribution to illusions of self-motion (vection) is relatively weak and often attributed to purely cognitive, top-down processes. The present study addressed the influence of cognitive and perceptual factors in the experience of circular, yaw auditorily-induced vection (AIV), focusing on participants imagery vividness scores. We used different rotating sound sources (acoustic landmark vs. movable types) and their filtered versions that provided different binaural cues (interaural time or level differences, ITD vs. ILD) when delivering via loudspeaker array. The significant differences in circular vection intensity showed that (1) AIV was stronger for rotating sound fields containing auditory landmarks as compared to movable sound objects; (2) ITD based acoustic cues were more instrumental than ILD based ones for horizontal AIV; and (3) individual differences in imagery vividness significantly influenced the effects of contextual and perceptual cues. While participants with high scores of kinesthetic and visual imagery were helped by vection “rich” cues, i.e., acoustic landmarks and ITD cues, the participants from the low-vivid imagery group did not benefit from these cues automatically. Only when specifically asked to use their imagination intentionally did these external cues start influencing vection sensation in a similar way to high-vivid imagers. These findings are in line with the recent fMRI work which suggested that high-vivid imagers employ automatic, almost unconscious mechanisms in imagery generation, while low-vivid imagers rely on more schematic and conscious framework. Consequently, our results provide an additional insight into the interaction between perceptual and contextual cues when experiencing purely auditorily or multisensory induced vection.
Highlights
Imagine yourself sitting on a plane, gazing at a beautiful cloudscape and noticing that the engine noise you found so disturbing just a minute ago has suddenly stopped
For the first part of the experiment auditorily induced vection (AIV) was reported by 55–86% of participants depending on the stimuli type (12–19 participants out of 22), which is comparable with our previous studies on circular AIV [50–75% in Väljamäe et al (2009)]. 3 participants did not report vection for any of the 12 sound presentations (AIV intensity 0)
It should be noted that these levels are low in comparison with the www.frontiersin.org acoustic fields containing two or three auditory landmarks, where the reported AIV intensity was at the levels of 40–50 on a 0–100 scale (Larsson et al, 2004; Väljamäe et al, 2009)
Summary
Imagine yourself sitting on a plane, gazing at a beautiful cloudscape and noticing that the engine noise you found so disturbing just a minute ago has suddenly stopped. While such unpleasant experiences occur very rarely, this example highlights the strong association between sound and motion. Due to the illusion weakness, and methodological difficulties, such as its vulnerability to conflicting non-auditory cues and/or contextual influences, the research on auditorily induced vection (AIV) still remain scarce and fragmented (Väljamäe, 2009). AIV has been often attributed to purely cognitive, top-down processes, and the weight of contextual vs perceptual factors in this auditory illusion remains unclear
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