Zhao S, Wang Y, Xu H, Feng C, Feng W. Early cross-modal interactions underlie the
audiovisual bounce-inducing effect.
Neuroimage 2018;
174:208-218. [PMID:
29567502 DOI:
10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.03.036]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/11/2017] [Revised: 02/14/2018] [Accepted: 03/17/2018] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Two identical visual disks moving towards one another on a two-dimensional display can be perceived as either "streaming through" or "bouncing off" each other after their coincidence/overlapping. A brief sound presented at the moment of the coincidence of the disks could strikingly bias the percept towards bouncing, which was termed the audiovisual bounce-inducing effect (ABE). Although the ABE has been studied intensively since its discovery, the debate about its origin is still unresolved so far. The present study used event-related potential (ERP) recordings to investigate whether or not early neural activities associated with cross-modal interactions play a role on the ABE. The results showed that the fronto-central P2 component ∼200 ms before the coincidence of the disks was predictive of subsequent streaming or bouncing percept in the unimodal visual display but not in auditory-visual display. More importantly, the cross-modal interactions revealed by the fronto-central positivity PD170 (125-175 ms after sound onset), as well as the occipital positivity PD190 (180-200 ms), were substantially enhanced on bouncing trials compared to streaming trials in the auditory-visual display. These findings provide direct electrophysiological evidence that early cross-modal interactions contribute to the origin of ABE phenomenon at the perceptual stage of processing.
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