title: Efficient visual search from synchronized auditory signals requires transient audiovisual events.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A prevailing view is that audiovisual integration requires temporally coincident signals. However, a recent study failed to find any evidence for audiovisual integration in visual search even when using synchronized audiovisual events. An important question is what information is critical to observe audiovisual integration.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Here we demonstrate that temporal coincidence (i.e., synchrony) of auditory and visual components can trigger audiovisual interaction in cluttered displays and consequently produce very fast and efficient target identification. In visual search experiments, subjects found a modulating visual target vastly more efficiently when it was paired with a synchronous auditory signal. By manipulating the kind of temporal modulation (sine wave vs. square wave vs. difference wave; harmonic sine-wave synthesis; gradient of onset/offset ramps) we show that abrupt visual events are required for this search efficiency to occur, and that sinusoidal audiovisual modulations do not support efficient search.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Thus, audiovisual temporal alignment will only lead to benefits in visual search if the changes in the component signals are both synchronized and transient. We propose that transient signals are necessary in synchrony-driven binding to avoid spurious interactions with unrelated signals when these occur close together in time.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. e.van.der.burg@psy.vu.nl
authors.forename: Erik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Van der Burg
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cass
authors.forename: Christian N L
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Olivers
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Theeuwes
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Alais
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013017:Sound Localization / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult