Auditory capture of visual motion

Lynnette Leone, Center for Visual Neuroscience, North Dakota State University

Abstract
We asked: 1) if the perceived direction of visual motion is influenced by auditory motion; 2) if contrast discrimination thresholds for visual motion are altered by concurrent auditory motion; and if 3) reflexive tracking eye movements to ambiguous visual motion stimuli are influenced by concurrent auditory motion. The visual stimulus was a compound Gabor patch (375 ms) whose motion energy was varied by adjusting the contrast of its rightward- and leftward-drifting components. Visual motion was paired with sounds whose motion in 3D auditory space could be manipulated (rightward, leftward, static, no sound). Observers judged the direction of visual motion. Discrimination thresholds for detecting rightward (or leftward) visual motion were obtained under similar auditory conditions. Finally, observers judged the direction of motion of an ambiguous (left-right balanced) visual stimulus during eyetracking. Results show that the perceived direction of visual motion is strongly influenced by concurrent auditory motion, such that auditory motion “captured” ambiguous visual motion. Visual motion discrimination thresholds were elevated for congruent auditory motion (and reduced for non-congruent auditory motion). Finally, auditory motion affected the gain of reflexive tracking eye movements elicited by an ambiguous visual stimulus, suggesting audiovisual interaction at very short latencies in an early processing site.

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