Papers

Peer-reviewed International coauthorship
Nov, 2013

Effect of pitch-space correspondence on sound-induced visual motion perception

EXPERIMENTAL BRAIN RESEARCH
  • Souta Hidaka
  • ,
  • Wataru Teramoto
  • ,
  • Mirjam Keetels
  • ,
  • Jean Vroomen

Volume
231
Number
1
First page
117
Last page
126
Language
English
Publishing type
Research paper (scientific journal)
DOI
10.1007/s00221-013-3674-2
Publisher
SPRINGER

The brain tends to associate specific features of stimuli across sensory modalities. The pitch of a sound is for example associated with spatial elevation such that higher-pitched sounds are felt as being "up" in space and lower-pitched sounds as being "down." Here we investigated whether changes in the pitch of sounds could be effective for visual motion perception similar to those in the location of sounds. We demonstrated that only sounds that alternate in up/down location induced illusory vertical motion of a static visual stimulus, while sounds that alternate in higher/lower pitch did not induce this illusion. The pitch of a sound did not even modulate the visual motion perception induced by sounds alternating in up/down location. Interestingly, though, sounds alternating in higher/lower pitch could become a driver for visual motion if they were paired in a previous exposure phase with vertical visual apparent motion. Thus, only after prolonged exposure, the pitch of a sound became an inducer for upper/lower visual motion. This occurred even if during exposure the pitch and location of the sounds were paired in an incongruent fashion. These findings indicate that pitch-space correspondence is not so strong to drive or modulate visual motion perception. However, associative exposure could increase the saliency of pitch-space relationships and then the pitch could induce visual motion perception by itself.

Link information
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-013-3674-2
PubMed
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24030519
Web of Science
https://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcAuth=JSTA_CEL&SrcApp=J_Gate_JST&DestLinkType=FullRecord&KeyUT=WOS:000325969600012&DestApp=WOS_CPL
URL
http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/24030519
ID information
  • DOI : 10.1007/s00221-013-3674-2
  • ISSN : 0014-4819
  • eISSN : 1432-1106
  • ORCID - Put Code : 33583861
  • Pubmed ID : 24030519
  • Web of Science ID : WOS:000325969600012

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