Visual illusion induced by sound

We present the first cross-modal modification of visual perception which involves a phenomenological change in the quality—as opposed to a small, gradual, or quantitative change—of the percept of a non-ambiguous visual stimulus. We report a visual illusion which is induced by sound: when a single fl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Brain research. Cognitive brain research 2002-06, Vol.14 (1), p.147-152
Main Authors: Shams, Ladan, Kamitani, Yukiyasu, Shimojo, Shinsuke
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic Stimulation - methods
Adult
Audio–visual perception
Auditory–visual interaction
Crossmodal interaction
Female
Humans
Illusions - physiology
Illusory flashing
Male
Multisensory integration
Visual illusion
Visual Perception - physiology
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Summary:We present the first cross-modal modification of visual perception which involves a phenomenological change in the quality—as opposed to a small, gradual, or quantitative change—of the percept of a non-ambiguous visual stimulus. We report a visual illusion which is induced by sound: when a single flash of light is accompanied by multiple auditory beeps, the single flash is perceived as multiple flashes. We present two experiments as well as several observations which establish that this alteration of the visual percept is due to cross-modal perceptual interactions as opposed to cognitive, attentional, or other origins. The results of the second experiment also reveal that the temporal window of these audio–visual interactions is approximately 100 ms.
ISSN:0926-6410
DOI:10.1016/S0926-6410(02)00069-1