Visual motion disambiguation by a subliminal sound

Abstract

To cite this version:A. Dufour, P. Touzalin, M. Moessinger, Renaud Brochard, O. Després. Visual motion disambiguation by a subliminal sound. Consciousness and Cognition, Elsevier, 2008, 3 (17) AbstractThere is growing interest in the effect of sound on visual motion perception. One model involves the illusion created when two identical objects moving towards each other on a two-dimensional visual display can be seen to either bounce off or stream through each other. Previous studies show that the large bias normally seen toward the streaming percept can be modulated by the presentation of an auditory event at the moment of coincidence. However, no reports to date provide sufficient evidence to indicate whether the sound bounce-inducing effect is due to a perceptual binding process or merely to an explicit inference resulting from the transient auditory stimulus resembling a physical collision of two objects. In the present study, we used a novel experimental design in which a subliminal sound was presented either 150 ms before, at, or 150 ms after the moment of coincidence of two disks moving towards each other. The results showed that there was an increased perception of bouncing (rather than streaming) when the subliminal sound was presented at or 150 ms after the moment of coincidence compared to when no sound was presented. These findings provide the first empirical demonstration that activation of the human auditory system without reaching consciousness affects the perception of an ambiguous visual motion display.

A single auditory tone alters the perception of multiple visual events

“…Even though the StdSBD is physically simultaneous with a tone and the coincidence and the tone is apparently integrated, our results show that a tone that is spatiotemporally proximate to the coincidence of the TstSBD exerts an influence on the percept of the TstSBD, possibly by distracting the (attentive) tracking of visual motion. Moreover, a sensory transient due to a sudden physical change is considered to draw our attention to a location of interest (Kanai & Verstraten, 2004) although Dufour, Touzalin, Moessinger, Brochard, and Després (2008) reported audiovisual bouncing effect in the absence of conscious perception of an auditory transient. Nevertheless, the balance of evidence to date on the stream/bounce effect favors the attentional distraction account.…”

Prevailing theories of consciousness are challenged by novel cross-modal associations acquired between subliminal stimuli

“…Furthermore, in the case of sequence learning, the sequences can be relatively simple, involving only first-order relations (Atas, Faivre, Timmermans, Cleeremans, & Kouider, 2014), or more complex (Rosenthal, Andrews, Antoniades, Kennard, & Soto, 2016;Rosenthal, Kennard, & Soto, 2010). Cross-modal effects where one of the stimuli is subliminal have been observed in the case of visual motion disambiguation (Dufour, Touzalin, Moessinger, Brochard, & Després, 2008) and cross-modal priming (Lamy, Mudrik, & Deouell, 2008; though see Kouider & Dupoux, 2001). There have been some related cross-modal findings involving olfaction.…”

“…Hence, some investigators have preferred to investigate subliminal effects at an objective threshold where forced-choice performance is at chance (e.g. Draine & Greenwald, 1998;Snodgrass & Shevrin, 2006). Even utilising objective methods the relationship between exposure and priming is not always straightforward, with some evidence that it can vary non-monotonically with SOA (Dagenbach, Carr, Wilhelmsen, 1989) and be subject to variations induced by the threshold setting tasks themselves (Carr & Dagenbach, 1990).…”

“…While there has been substantial evidence for priming below the objective threshold, for the most part effects have been smaller, difficult to attain and short lived (e.g. Draine & Greenwald, 1998;Klauer, Eder, Greenwald, & Abrams, 2007, though cf. Van den Bussche, Van den Noortgate, and Reynvoet (2009) who found no significant effect of using objective versus subjective thresholds in a meta-analysis of subliminal priming effects).…”

Aging and Audio-Visual and Multi-Cue Integration in Motion

“…However, other studies found that removal of attention alone can not account for the effect, as some concurrent events presented at disks’ coincidence did not increase the proportion of bouncing percepts, while still distracting attention from the moving disks (Sekuler et al, 1997; Watanabe and Shimojo, 2001; Grassi and Casco, 2009). In addition, Dufour et al (2008) showed that the presentation of a subliminal sound, an event that was unlikely to have disrupted sustained attention, also promoted the bouncing percept. Therefore, it is unlikely that differences in sustained attention can fully explain the weakened effects of the visual and auditory events.…”