Audiovisual simultaneity windows reflect temporal sensory uncertainty
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21641198 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Emma Cary (0000-0002-4020-2374, Tufts University), Ilona Lahdesmaki (Tufts University), Stephanie Badde (0000-0002-4005-5503, Tufts University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 2170-2179 |
| Publication date | 2024-10-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1069-9384 • E-ISSN: 1531-5320 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.3758/s13423-024-02478-4 |
| PMID | 38388825 |
| OpenAlex | W4392024331 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 77 |
The ability to judge the temporal alignment of visual and auditory information is a prerequisite for multisensory integration and segregation. However, each temporal measurement is subject to error. Thus, when judging whether a visual and auditory stimulus were presented simultaneously, observers must rely on a subjective decision boundary to distinguish between measurement error and truly misaligned audiovisual signals. Here, we tested whether these decision boundaries are relaxed with increasing temporal sensory uncertainty, i.e., whether participants make the same type of adjustment an ideal observer would make. Participants judged the simultaneity of audiovisual stimulus pairs with varying temporal offset, while being immersed in different virtual environments. To obtain estimates of participants’ temporal sensory uncertainty and simultaneity criteria in each environment, an independent-channels model was fitted to their simultaneity judgments. In two experiments, participants’ simultaneity decision boundaries were predicted by their temporal uncertainty, which varied unsystematically with the environment. Hence, observers used a flexibly updated estimate of their own audiovisual temporal uncertainty to establish subjective criteria of simultaneity. This finding implies that, under typical circumstances, audiovisual simultaneity windows reflect an observer’s cross-modal temporal uncertainty
Cognitive psychology · Simultaneity · Communication · Multisensory perception and integration · Olfactory and Sensory Function Studies · Psychology · Visual perception and processing mechanisms
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| Citations per year | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |