title: Suppressed visual looming stimuli are not integrated with auditory looming signals: Evidence from continuous flash suppression.
abstract: Previous studies using binocular rivalry have shown that signals in a modality other than the visual can bias dominance durations depending on their congruency with the rivaling stimuli. More recently, studies using continuous flash suppression (CFS) have reported that multisensory integration influences how long visual stimuli remain suppressed. In this study, using CFS, we examined whether the contrast thresholds for detecting visual looming stimuli are influenced by a congruent auditory stimulus. In Experiment 1, we show that a looming visual stimulus can result in lower detection thresholds compared to a static concentric grating, but that auditory tone pips congruent with the looming stimulus did not lower suppression thresholds any further. In Experiments 2, 3, and 4, we again observed no advantage for congruent multisensory stimuli. These results add to our understanding of the conditions under which multisensory integration is possible, and suggest that certain forms of multisensory integration are not evident when the visual stimulus is suppressed from awareness using CFS.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Leuven, Belgium; e-mail: pieter.moors@ppw.kuleuven.be.
authors.forename: Pieter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Moors
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Leuven, Belgium; e-mail: hanne.huygelier@student.kuleuven.be.
authors.forename: Hanne
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Huygelier
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Leuven, Belgium; e-mail: johan.wagemans@psy.kuleuven.be.
authors.forename: Johan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wagemans
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Leuven, Belgium; e-mail: lee.dewit@ppw.kuleuven.be.
authors.forename: Lee
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: de-Wit
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Leuven, Belgium; Department of Biophysics, Donders Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Department of Brain, Body, & Behavior, Philips Research Laboratories, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; e-mail: raymond.vanee@ppw.kuleuven.be.
authors.forename: Raymond
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: van Ee
keywords: audiovisual integration; audiovisual looming; binocular rivalry; continuous flash suppression; interocular suppression; multisensory integration; visual awareness