Introduction to the Special Issue: Forty Years of the McGurk Effect
Source:Volume 31, Issue 1-2, pp 1 - 6 (Source: Multisensory research)
Source: Multisensory research - December 7, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Michael S. Beauchamp Source Type: research
Effects of Temporal Distribution on Utility of Temporal Factors in Competitive Audio-Visual Perceived Synchrony (Advance Article)
Source:Page Count 15The perception of audio-visual synchrony is affected by both temporal coincidence and stimulus congruency factors. In situations when temporal and stimulus information are not in agreement, the perceiver must rely on the relative informative value of both factors in deciding which of multiple potential binding candidates are most likely to be of a common source to a target. Previous research has shown that, all being equal, participants tend to rely primarily on temporal information, and only take stimulus information into consideration when temporal information is ambiguous. The current research seeks ...
Source: Multisensory research - December 5, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Jonathan M. P. Wilbiks Source Type: research
The Effect of Visual and Auditory Information on the Perception of Pleasantness and Roughness of Virtual Surfaces (Advance Article)
In this study, different haptic virtual surfaces were rendered by varying the static and dynamic frictional coefficients of a Geomagic® Touch device. In Experiment 1, the haptic surfaces were paired with pictures representing everyday materials (glass, plastic, rubber and steel); in Experiment 2, the haptic surfaces were paired with sounds resulting from the haptic exploration of paper or sandpaper. In both the experiments, participants were required to rat e the pleasantness and the roughness of the virtual surfaces explored. Exploration times were also recorded. Both pleasantness and roughness judgments, as well as t...
Source: Multisensory research - December 5, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Roberta Etzi, Francesco Ferrise, Monica Bordegoni, Massimiliano Zampini and Alberto Gallace Source Type: research
Language –General Auditory–Visual Speech Perception: Thai–English and Japanese–English McGurk Effects (Advance Article)
Source:Page Count 32Cross-language McGurk Effects are used to investigate the locus of auditory –visual speech integration. Experiment 1 uses the fact that [], as in ‘sing’, is phonotactically legal in word-final position in English and Thai, but in word-initial position only in Thai. English and Thai language participants were tested for ‘n’ perception from auditory [m]/visual [] (A[m]V[]) in word-initial and -final positions. Despite English speakers’ nativ e language bias to label word-initial [] as ‘n’, the incidence of ‘n’ percepts to A[m]V[] was equivalent for English and Thai speakers in finaland...
Source: Multisensory research - October 23, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Denis Burnham and Barbara Dodd Source Type: research
Semantically Congruent Visual Stimuli Can Improve Auditory Memory
Source:Volume 30, Issue 7-8, pp 639 - 651We investigated the effects of audiovisual semantic congruency on recognition memory performance. It has been shown previously that memory performance is better for semantically congruent stimuli that are presented together in different modalities (e.g., a dog ’s bark with a picture of the dog) during encoding, compared to stimuli presented together with an incongruent or non-semantic stimulus across modalities. We wanted to clarify whether this congruency effect is also present when the effects of response bias and uncertainty of stimulus type are remo ved. The participants memor...
Source: Multisensory research - October 5, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Jenni Heikkil ä, Kimmo Alho and Kaisa Tiippana Source Type: research
Book Review: Our Senses: Gateways to Consciousness, written by Rob DeSalle
Source:Page Count 6Charles Spence reviews Rob DeSalle ’s (2018) new bookOur Senses: Gateways to Consciousness, a popular science look at the neuroscience behind the senses set in an evolutionary context. (Source: Multisensory research)
Source: Multisensory research - September 27, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Charles Spence Source Type: research
Age Effects on Visuo-Haptic Length Discrimination: Evidence for Optimal Integration of Senses in Senior Adults
Source:Page Count 28Demographic changes in most developed societies have fostered research on functional aging. While cognitive changes have been characterized elaborately, understanding of perceptual aging lacks behind. We investigated age effects on the mechanisms of how multiple sources of sensory information are merged into a common percept. We studied visuo-haptic integration in a length discrimination task. A total of 24 young (20–25 years) and 27 senior (69–77 years) adults compared standard stimuli to appropriate sets of comparison stimuli. Standard stimuli were explored under visual, haptic, or visuo-haptic ...
Source: Multisensory research - September 27, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Jutta Billino and Knut Drewing Source Type: research
Semantically Congruent Visual Information Can Improve Auditory Recognition Memory in Older Adults (Advance Article)
In this study, we investigated how audiovisual encoding affects auditory recognition memory in older (mean age 71 years) and younger (mean age 23 years) adults. Participants memorized auditory stimuli (sounds, spoken words) presented either alone or with semantically congruent visual stimuli (pictures, text) during encoding. Subsequent recognition memory performance of auditory stimuli was better for stimuli initially presented together with visual stimuli than for auditory stimuli presented alone during encoding. This facilitation was observed both in older and younger participants, while the overall memory performance wa...
Source: Multisensory research - September 26, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Jenni Heikkil ä, Petra Fagerlund and Kaisa Tiippana Source Type: research
Semantic Congruency Improves Recognition Memory Performance for Both Audiovisual and Visual Stimuli (Advance Article)
Source:Page Count 19Audiovisual semantic congruency during memory encoding has been shown to facilitate later recognition memory performance. However, it is still unclear whether this improvement is due to multisensory semantic congruency or just semantic congruencyper se. We investigated whether dual visual encoding facilitates recognition memory in the same way as audiovisual encoding. The participants memorized auditory or visual stimuli paired with a semantically congruent, incongruent or non-semantic stimulus in the same modality or in the other modality during encoding. Subsequent recognition memory performance was b...
Source: Multisensory research - September 15, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Jenni Heikkil ä, Kimmo Alho and Kaisa Tiippana Source Type: research
Cortical Correlates of the Simulated Viewpoint Oscillation Advantage for Vection (Advance Article)
Source:Page Count 23Behavioural studies have consistently found stronger vection responses for oscillating, compared to smooth/constant, patterns of radial flow (the simulated viewpoint oscillation advantage for vection). Traditional accounts predict that simulated viewpoint oscillation should impair vection by increasing visual –vestibular conflicts in stationary observers (as this visual oscillation simulates self-accelerations that should strongly stimulate the vestibular apparatus). However, support for increased vestibular activity during accelerating vection has been mixed in the brain imaging literature. This fMRI...
Source: Multisensory research - September 15, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Ramy Kirollos, Robert S. Allison and Stephen Palmisano Source Type: research
Auditory Rhythms Influence Judged Time to Contact of an Occluded Moving Object
Source:Page Count 22We studied the expected moment of reappearance of a moving object after it disappeared from sight. In particular, we investigated whether auditory rhythms influence time to contact (TTC) judgments. Using displays in which a moving disk disappears behind an occluder, we examined whether an accompanying auditory rhythm influences the expected TTC of an occluded moving object. We manipulated a baseline auditory rhythm — consisting of equal sound and pause durations — in two ways: either the pause durations or the sound durations were increased to create slower rhythms. Participants had to press a bu...
Source: Multisensory research - September 15, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Chayada Chotsrisuparat, Arno Koning, Richard Jacobs and Rob van Lier Source Type: research
Using Race Model Violation to Explore Multisensory Responses in Older Adults: Enhanced Multisensory Integration or Slower Unisensory Processing? (Advance Article)
Source:Page Count 24Older adults exhibit greater multisensory reaction time (RT) facilitation than young adults. Since older adults exhibit greater violation of the race model (i.e., cumulative distribution functions for multisensory RTs are greater than that of the summed unisensory RTs), this has been attributed to enhanced multisensory integration. Here we explored whether (a) individual differences in RT distributions within each age group might drive this effect, and (b) the race model is more likely to be violated if unisensory RTs are slower. Young (n=34) and older adults (n=30) made speeded responses to visual, aud...
Source: Multisensory research - September 15, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Samuel Couth, Emma Gowen and Ellen Poliakoff Source Type: research
Segregation and Integration of Cortical Information Processing Underlying Cross-Modal Perception (Advance Article)
Source:Page Count 20Visual cues from the speaker ’s face influence the perception of speech. An example of this influence is demonstrated by the McGurk-effect where illusory (cross-modal) sounds are perceived following presentation of incongruent audio–visual (AV) stimuli. Previous studies report the engagement of specific cortical modules tha t are spatially distributed during cross-modal perception. However, the limits of the underlying representational space and the cortical network mechanisms remain unclear. In this combined psychophysical and electroencephalography (EEG) study, the participants reported their perc...
Source: Multisensory research - September 15, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: G. Vinodh Kumar, Neeraj Kumar, Dipanjan Roy and Arpan Banerjee Source Type: research
Emotional and Semantic Associations Between Cinematographic Aesthetics and Haptic Perception
This study investigates systematic links between haptic perception and multimodal cinema perception. It differs from previous research conducted on cross-modal associations as it focuses on a complex intermodal stimulus, close to one people experience in reality: cinema. Participants chose materials that are most/least consistent with three-minute samples of films with elements of beauty and ugliness. We found that specific materials are associated with certain films significantly different from chance. Silk was associated with films including elements of beauty, while sandpaper was associated with films including elements...
Source: Multisensory research - September 14, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Marina Iosifyan, Olga Korolkova and Igor Vlasov Source Type: research
Aging and Sensitivity to Illusory Target Motion With or Without Secondary Tasks
We examined whether this could be quantified using an interception task. Twenty healthy young adults (age 18 –34) and twenty-four healthy older adults (age 60–82) were asked to tap on discs that were moving downwards on a screen with their finger. Moving the background to the left made the discs appear to move more to the right. Moving the background to the right made them appear to move more to the le ft. The discs disappeared before the finger reached the screen, so participants had to anticipate how the target would continue to move. We examined how misjudging the disc’s motion when the background moves influenced...
Source: Multisensory research - September 14, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Alix L. de Dieuleveult, Anne-Marie Brouwer, Petra C. Siemonsma, Jan B. F. van Erp and Eli Brenner Source Type: research
