Sound controls velocity perception of visual apparent motion

摘要

When stimuli in both visual- and auditory-modalities are presented at the same time, visual information usually alters auditory perception. When sound is presented from a certain position, for example, we can locate the sound source at the position. On the other hand, we miss-locate the voice source at a position where a talking face without voice, like a doll of ventriloquism, is presented even if position of the actual voice source is located at a different position ("ventriloquism-effects"). We can correctly perceive a /ba/ sound, if the /ba/ sound is presented only by a loud speaker. However, we misperceive a /ba/ sound as a /da/ sound, if a face producing a /ga/-lip movement is presented with the /ba/ sound (McGurk-effects). Those are typical examples of "visual-dominance effects." However, little has been shown that an auditory stimulus changes visual perception). This asymmetry might have indicated that the visual modality overrules the auditory modality when visual and auditory stimuli are presented at the same time. On the contrary, we found new evidence that an auditory input does alter visual perception. In the present paper, we show how the auditory input can modify the visual apparent motion.