title: When sounds look right and images sound correct: cross-modal coherence enhances claims of pattern presence.
abstract: How do people decide whether a stimulus contains a pattern? One possibility is that they rely on a global, non-specific signal of coherence. Interestingly, this signal might reflect a combination of different stimulus sources. Consequently, the coherence of one stimulus might influence decisions about coherence of a second, unrelated stimulus. We explored this possibility in three experiments in which participants judged the presence of a pattern in targets from one sensory modality, while being exposed in the background to incidental coherent and incoherent stimuli in a different modality (visual→auditory, auditory→visual). Across all three experiments, using a variety of judgments, coherence of incidental background cross-modal patterns enhanced claims of pattern presence. These findings advance our understanding of how people judge order in the structured as well as in the unstructured world.
authors: University of Warsaw, Institute for Social Studies, Poland.
authors: Michał
authors: M
authors: Ziembowicz
authors: Andrzej
authors: A
authors: Nowak
authors: Piotr
authors: P
authors: Winkielman
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D046709:Pattern Recognition, Physiological / Q000502:physiology; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology
keywords: Coherence; Decisions; Fluency; Judgments; Patterns; Regularity