Alternation of Sound Location Induces Visual Motion Perception of a Static Object

Abstract

BackgroundAudition provides important cues with regard to stimulus motion although vision may provide the most salient information. It has been reported that a sound of fixed intensity tends to be judged as decreasing in intensity after adaptation to looming visual stimuli or as increasing in intensity after adaptation to receding visual stimuli. This audiovisual interaction in motion aftereffects indicates that there are multimodal contributions to motion perception at early levels of sensory processing. However, there has been no report that sounds can induce the perception of visual motion.Methodology/Principal FindingsA visual stimulus blinking at a fixed location was perceived to be moving laterally when the flash onset was synchronized to an alternating left-right sound source. This illusory visual motion was strengthened with an increasing retinal eccentricity (2.5 deg to 20 deg) and occurred more frequently when the onsets of the audio and visual stimuli were synchronized.Conclusions/SignificanceWe clearly demonstrated that the alternation of sound location induces illusory visual motion when vision cannot provide accurate spatial information. The present findings strongly suggest that the neural representations of auditory and visual motion processing can bias each other, which yields the best estimates of external events in a complementary manner.

High-intensity sound increases the size of visually perceived objects

“…The cue reliability of visual stimuli decreases with increasing distance between a fixation point and visual stimuli (i.e., eccentricity). Indeed, several audiovisual interaction phenomena have been reported under conditions in which visual stimuli were unreliable because of manipulations in eccentricity (e.g., Hidaka et al, 2009;Shams et al, 2002). Following these studies, in the present experiment, relative reliability was manipulated through changes in eccentricity: We investigated the effects of retinal eccentricity (i.e., the difference between the central and peripheral visual fields) on the modulation of visual size by sound.…”

“…That is to say, the changing pitch (ascending or descending) of an auditory stimulus alters the perceived direction of its motion either upward or downward (Maeda, Kanai & Shimojo, 2004). Moreover, the alternation of sound locations leads to the perception of static object movement (Hidaka et al, 2009). Sounds affect the perception of velocity, as well (Kafaligonul & Stoner, 2010;Manabe & Riquimaroux, 2000;Takeshima & Gyoba, 2011).…”

Intersensory binding across space and time: A tutorial review

“…The effect of vision on sound location is usually robust, whereas the reverse effect-sound attracting visual location-is usually quite subtle and has mostly been observed with visual displays that are difficult to localize (Alais & Burr, 2004b;Bertelson & Radeau, 1981. More recently, though, a particularly clear effect of sound on visual localization has been reported by Hidaka et al (2009;see also Teramoto, Hidaka, Sugita, Sakamoto, Gyoba, Iwaya & Suzuki, 2012). These authors presented a blinking visual stimulus at a fixed location against a nontextured dark background.…”

A Driving Simulator Study to Examine the Role of Vehicle Acoustics on Drivers’ Speed Perception

“…Although the effect of audition on vision is perhaps not as widely investigated, striking examples include an experiment by Shams et al (2005) where participants reported seeing multiple flashing objects on a screen, when in fact only one object was flashed, but accompanied by multiple beeps (Shams, Kamitani & Shimojo, 2005). Sound has also been shown to alter the visual perception of object motion (Sekuler, Sekuler & Lau, 1997;Hidaka et al, 2009). Therefore, the role of auditory feedback in driver performance and speed/motion perception cannot be ignored.…”

“…As sound is shown to influence visual motion perception (e.g. Hidaka et al, 2009) its attenuation or absence in the car may lead to driver confusion, encouraging drivers to drive faster in order to compensate for the absence of the auditory cues needed for speed perception. Such undesirable increases in driving speed, leading to reduced driver safety may well be intensified by future initiatives to utilise alternate fuel technologies, in lighter, less well shielded vehicles, that present drivers with unfamiliar acoustic environments.…”