Effect of audio-visual semantic congruency, attention, and fixation position on bistable-figure percept
Date Issued
2010
Date
2010
Author(s)
Hsiao, Jhih-Yun
Abstract
Bistable figures provide a fascinating window through which to explore human visual awareness, since a constant visual stimulus induces a dynamic alternation between two distinct percepts over time. Here we examine whether a background auditory soundtrack that is semantically congruent with either one of the percepts can modulate an observer’s perceptual state, and whether this auditory modulation interacts with selective attention and fixation position (factors that have previously been shown to influence the perception of bistable figures; Meng & Tong, 2004). We used the well-known bistable figure of "my wife or my mother-in-law" as the visual stimulus, and presented the voice of an old or young lady as the background soundtrack. The results revealed that the participants reported seeing the old woman (or young lady) for more of the time when listening to the voice of an old woman (or young lady). Crucially, these results cannot simply be attributed to a consequence of response bias (Experiments 1 and 2). When the participants were instructed to voluntarily maintain a specific view, the crossmodal modulation of bistable perception was reduced in magnitude, but not completely eliminated (Experiment 3). Further, the auditory modulation was observed regardless of the manipulation of fixation position (Experiment 4). These results therefore demonstrate that auditory semantic context can modulate the visual processing of which a conscious percept emerges when viewing a bistable figure.
Subjects
bistable perception
crossmodal integration
semantic congruency
selective attention
visual consciousness
Type
thesis
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
ntu-99-R97227115-1.pdf
Size
23.53 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum
(MD5):8c1be90616597877cf0e92130895cfcf