Effects of auditory information change on the visible persistence of moving visual objects(Summary of Awarded Presentation at the 27th Annual Meeting)

The Japanese Psychonomic Society

NII-Electronic Library Service

The JapanesePsychonomic Society

TheltzpanesefournelofRs'ychonomic Science

2009,VoL 28,No. 1,l77-178

Summary

ofAwarded

Presentation2P44

Effectsof

auditory

information

persistence

of

moving

change

on

the

visible

visual

objects

Souta

HmAKA*,

Wataru

TERAMoTo*2,

Jiro

GyoBA*,

and

Y6iti

SuzuKi*2

Graduate Schooi

of

Arts and Letters,Tohohu Uitiversity*,Research institute

of

Electn'cal

Communicatien,

Tohoku

[iniversit],*2

In

avisual apparent motion

display,

an abrupt change

in

theattributes of an object, such as

its

size, extends the time the changed object isvisible

_{visible

_persistence)even after its

_physica]

termination.

The

aim ofthisstudy was to

investigate

whether an abrupt change inan attribute of

contingent auditory stimuli can also alter the visible persistenceof an object. and how

it

might

do

this.The results indicated that a visible _persistence occurred

for

]onger time when an abrupt

change of tone was

introduced

intoa sequence ef constant tones _presented synchronously with

visual stimuli. This

_persistence

was also

longer

than when no abrupt change was

introduced

or

when auditory

information

"ias absent

(Experiment

1},However, the effect was attenuated when

it

was

dillicult

to

attribute theauditory

information

to

the

meving visual objects

(Experiment

2),

These

results suggest that the object representations underlying the visible

_persistence

might

be

formed

by multisensory integrati,onof auditory and visual information.

Key words: visible _persistence, auditory

'

representat]on

frequency, audio-visual interaction,moving objecVs

Recentiy, Mordkoff, & Enus

{2007)

demonstrated

that an abrupt change

in

the attributes of an object,

such as its size, in an apparent motion sequence

extends the time in which _the changed object is

visible

(visible

persistence) eyen after

its

physical

terrnination

{Fig,

1),

They

also confirmed that an

alteration of the visible _persistence did not occur when thevisual stimu]us moved

behind

an occluder containing a small hole,so that there was a reason-able size change of thevisual stimuli. These findings

indicate

that the perception of multipLe objects

oc-curs

because

an object-level change, and not a

retinaNevel change, triggers a discontinuity of

ob-iect

identification

in

motion

displays,

Considering

that

our

internal

representations are

established by multimodal iniormation, itcould be

argued thatthe

discontinuity

of object

identtfication

occurs across sensory modalities. The _present

re-search exarnined the effect of auditory

information

(frequency)

changes on the visible persistence of

ap-parently moving visual stimuli by using a method

adopted

by

Moore

et, al,

(2007),

Experiment

1

Methods. A white disc

(O.6'

in diameter, 49.11

cd/m2) was sequentially presented against a gray

background

_<7.28cd/m3)

as an apparent metion

stimulus

{Figure

1).

The

disc

location

moved

by

150

inevery frame of 80 rns, following a circular motion

*

_Department

_of

_Psychology,

_Graduate

_School

_of

Arts

and

Letters,

Tohoku

University:

27-1

Kawauchi,

Aoba-ku,

Sendai

980-8576

Physical

nme

Percept

Figure

1.

Sehematic

illustrations

of the visual

stirnuli inExperiment 1,

path which was centered around a b]ue

fixation

point

(5.31

cd/m2).

The

radius of the

imaginary

circle

of the motion _path was 30.In the

t'Visua!

change" condition, the

disc

became

smaller

(O.45e

in

diameter)

at the penultimate

frame

and returned to

its

original

size in the lastframe. The size of the discs was

constant during visual motion inthe"XNrithout visua] change" condition. One disc was _presented at the

finaL

position of themotion trajectoryinthe "Single"

trials,whereas two

discs

were presented atthe

penul-timate, and

the

last,_positionsof the motion

trajec-tery

in

the "Double" _{trials.For the}

auditory stimuli,

two types of _pure tone were used: 600

Hz

{L

tone;83

dB

SPL)

and 3000

Hz

(H

tone;75dB

SPL).

Each

tone

was 80ms long with an 8ms cosine ramp at the

onset and offset, and was presented synchronously

with each disc.During the "Without

auditory tran-sient" trials,a sequence of either L or

H

tones were constantLy _presented, In contrast, on the '[Auditory

transient"trials,the type of the tone was abruptly

changed from L to }I,or frornH toL,inthe penulti-mate

frame,

and returned tothe original tene atthe

last

frame.

The control trialswere composed of

The Japanese Psychonomic Society

NII-Electronic Library Service

The JapanesePsychonomic Society

178

The

Japanese

Journal

of Psychonornic

Scicnce

VeL 28,No. 1

frames without an auditory stimulus

("Without

sound").

Ten

participants were asked to report how

many

discs

they

observed

(one

or

two)

in

the

Iast

frame.

Results

and Discussion.

We

averaged thc

propor-tions

of reporting two

disc$

in

each condttion

(Fig.

2).

A three-way repeated ANOVA revealed thatan

inter-action effect

between

all the

factors

was significant

F(2,

18)=8.96,

p<.O05>.

In the "Double"

condition,

the _participants correctly perceived two discs

in

a

large

_percentage of trials.However, inthe "Single"

condition, theparticipants mistakenly _perceived two

discsinseveral trialsinwhich thesize of the discwas

changed and!or the auditory

frequency

changed,

Both

in

the "Visual

change" and the "Without

vi$ual

changei' conditions, the_proportions of reporting

two

discs

were significantly higher when the auditory

frequency

was abruptly changed than

in

any other

sound conditi,ons

{P<.OO1).

The

results clearty revealed that not only the size

changes of the visual stimuli, but also auditory

fre-quency changes, induced the _perception of two

stim-ulj

in

the "Single'' condition.

This

indicates

that the

changes of auditory attributes _prolong the visible

persistence ef the apparently moving visual stimu]i.

Experiment

2

The aim of Experiment

2

was

to

investigate

whether the effect of auditory

frequency

change on

the

visible _persistence of

the

moving visual stimuli

was attenuated when the auditory information was

difficulttoassoeiate with the stimulL Thus, we

intro-duced

a situation where the tones were more

likely

to be associated with the fixation,but not to the

moving disc,We considered tbat

if

the auditory

fre-quency ehange

had

a selective effect on the visua]

object a$sociated with the auditory stimuli, the

yisi-ble _persistence of the rnoving

discs

would not be

attered.

Methods. At the beginning of each trialthe color

of the fixationaLternated between red

_(13.29

cdlmt)

and

blue

(5.31cd!m2)

at the centcr of the display,

while itwas synchronized with a sequencc of tones

in

the

"Without

auditory change" and `tAuditory

transienti'

conditions,

The

duration

of each color was

gradually

decreased

from

280

ms to

80

ms.

A

disc

then appeared on the display, and imrnediately

started tomove.

The

color of the fixattoncontinued

to alternate during the visual rnetion sequence.

Results

and

Discussion.

A

three-way repeated

ANOVA revealed an significant

interaction

between

all of thefactorsF(2, l8)== 5.97,P<D5). This _revealed

that,in the

"Single"

trtalsof the

'`Vi'sual

change"

condition.

the

_proportions of seeing two

disc$

were significantly higher when the auditory

frequency

was abruptly changed than wben the Irequency was

constant or whcn there was no sound

(Fig.

2b).

For

the "Single" _trials

of the "Without _Visua] change"

condition, there was no significant

difference

(P=

ge....-fi'gptna='goautsE･=-g2q

ge-cr.E-ti.ptTge'f.a.ets8'eogac

(a)IOO%gG%ec%4G%2e%

o%(b)lee%80%60%4e%2e% ea/. SWithoulseuntieW{theutaedltoryironsienLeAudlterytraisient

Figure 2. Results of

{a)

Experiment 1 and

(b)

Experiment

2,

Error

bar

denotes

the standard

error of the mean,

.92).

The

cffect of auditory

frequency

change was ob-served only in

the"Visual

change" condition, and the sizeof theeffect was smaller than thatof

Experiment

1.

Moreover,

theeffect oi auditory

frequency

change

was not apparent in the

"Without

visual change"

condition. These

findings

indicate

that changes of

auditory

frequency

infiuence

the visible persistence of apparently rnoving stimuli inan object-selective manner.

General

Discussion

The present study revealed thatan abrupt change

in

an auditory attribute

Ctrequency)

prolongs the

visible _persistence of moving visual stimulL ln

addi-tion,thiseffect was attenuated when the auditory

information was difficultto associate with the

mov-ing visual objects. These results suggest that the

object representations unde'r]ying thevisible

persis-tence

of moving objects might

be

formed by

mu]tisensory

integration

of visual and auditory

in-formation.

Acknowledgments

This

research was supported by

JSPS

Research

Fellowship

for

Young

Scientjsts

(No.

19004400) and

by Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Rescarch

{No.

19001004).

,

References

Moore, C.M, Mordkoff,

_J.

T,,& Enns,

_J,

T.

_(2007).

The

path of

least

persistence:

Object

status mediates

visual updating. VisionResearch,47, l624-1630,