Spatial disparity does not affect temporal ventriloquism.
Poster Presentation

Mirjam Keetels
Dept. of Psychology, Tilburg, The Netherlands

Jean Vroomen
Dept. of Psychology, Tilburg, The Netherlands

     Abstract ID Number: 65
     Full text: PDF
     Last modified: June 24, 2005

Abstract
A sound presented in close temporal proximity to a visual stimulus can alter the perceived temporal occurrence of that visual stimulus (i.e. temporal ventriloquism). Here, we explored the conditions under which this cross-modal interaction occurs using a visual temporal order judgement (TOJ) task. Participants judged which of two lights appeared first, while they heard an irrelevant sound before the first and after the second light. Visual TOJ performance was most accurate (i.e., the lowest just noticeable difference, JND) when the interval between the sound and light was 100 ms. Introducing spatial disparity between the sound and light had no effect on temporal ventriloquism. These results challenge the commonly held view that similarity in space is an important condition for cross-modal interactions to occur.