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Dynamic perceptual changes in audiovisual simultaneity

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posted on 2023-06-08, 14:34 authored by Ryota Kanai, Bhavin R Sheth, Frans A J Verstraten, Shinsuke Shimojo
BACKGROUND The timing at which sensory input reaches the level of conscious perception is an intriguing question still awaiting an answer. It is often assumed that both visual and auditory percepts have a modality specific processing delay and their difference determines perceptual temporal offset. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Here, we show that the perception of audiovisual simultaneity can change flexibly and fluctuates over a short period of time while subjects observe a constant stimulus. We investigated the mechanisms underlying the spontaneous alternations in this audiovisual illusion and found that attention plays a crucial role. When attention was distracted from the stimulus, the perceptual transitions disappeared. When attention was directed to a visual event, the perceived timing of an auditory event was attracted towards that event. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE This multistable display illustrates how flexible perceived timing can be, and at the same time offers a paradigm to dissociate perceptual from stimulus-driven factors in crossmodal feature binding. Our findings suggest that the perception of crossmodal synchrony depends on perceptual binding of audiovisual stimuli as a common event.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

PLoS ONE

ISSN

1932-6203

Publisher

Public Library of Science

Issue

12

Volume

2

Article number

e1253

Department affiliated with

  • Psychology Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2013-03-11

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2013-03-11

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2013-03-11

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