title: Auditory motion information drives visual motion perception.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Vision provides the most salient information with regard to the stimulus motion. However, it has recently been demonstrated that static visual stimuli are perceived as moving laterally by alternating left-right sound sources. The underlying mechanism of this phenomenon remains unclear; it has not yet been determined whether auditory motion signals, rather than auditory positional signals, can directly contribute to visual motion perception.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Static visual flashes were presented at retinal locations outside the fovea together with a lateral auditory motion provided by a virtual stereo noise source smoothly shifting in the horizontal plane. The flash appeared to move by means of the auditory motion when the spatiotemporal position of the flashes was in the middle of the auditory motion trajectory. Furthermore, the lateral auditory motion altered visual motion perception in a global motion display where different localized motion signals of multiple visual stimuli were combined to produce a coherent visual motion perception.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings suggest there exist direct interactions between auditory and visual motion signals, and that there might be common neural substrates for auditory and visual motion processing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Rikkyo University, Niiza-shi, Saitama, Japan. hidaka@rikkyo.ac.jp
authors.forename: Souta
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hidaka
authors.forename: Wataru
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Teramoto
authors.forename: Yoichi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sugita
authors.forename: Yuko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Manaka
authors.forename: Shuichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sakamoto
authors.forename: Yôiti
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Suzuki
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D006801:Humans; D009038:Motion; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*