In a series of studies, Quinn, Goutcher and Watt (2007) investigated the ability to detect a temporally regular stimulus from a temporally irregular stimulus. Participants were asked to judge which of two intervals, each showing a sequence of briefly flashed lines, contained a temporally regular pattern. In the temporally regular stimulus (visual target stimulus), lines were regularly spaced in time. The other interval contained a sequence with the same overall duration, but with irregular intervals between flashed lines (visual non-target stimulus). Both stimuli were then interleaved with a further irregular sequence of flashed lines (visual distractor). Detection was possible when the visual target stimulus was presented alone, but became impossible when the visual distractor was also presented. This effect was also observed in the auditory domain: detecting a temporally regular sequence of tones was possible when they were presented without an auditory distractor, but became more difficult when the distractor was presented.

Several studies have also shown that the onset of auditory stimuli has powerful effects on the perceived occurrence of visual stimuli: a sound presented in close proximity to a visual stimulus causes the onset of the visual stimulus to appear closer in time to the sound (an effect known as temporal ventriloquism). However, this effect is not observed in reverse: the perceived onset of a tone is not pulled towards the onset of a visual stimulus suggesting a dominance of the auditory domain over the visual system. Consequently, it is possible that detecting the temporally regular visual target would be disrupted when an auditory distractor was interleaved between temporally regular flashed lines. However, the presence of a visual distractor should have no affect on the ability to detect a temporally regular auditory stimulus.

In a series of studies we investigated the ability to discriminate a temporally regular stimulus from a temporally irregular stimulus. In study 1, participants judged which of two stimuli, each showing a sequence of flashed lines, contained a temporally regular stimulus. In the target stimulus, flashed lines were regularly spaced in time. The other pattern contained a sequence of flashes with the same overall duration, but with irregularly timed intervals between each line (non-target stimulus). Both stimuli were simultaneously presented with a temporally regular sequence of tones (auditory distractor). The second study involved the same temporal features as above, but the target and non-target stimuli were replaced by tones and the distractor sequence contained flashed lines. Detecting the auditory target stimulus was possible when it was presented with the visual distractor sequence. However, detecting the visual target stimulus was more difficult in the presence of the auditory distractor. This supports previous evidence suggesting a dominance of the auditory system over the visual system and a new version of the temporal ventriloquist effect.