PMID- 21942418
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20120413
LR  - 20111129
IS  - 1939-1277 (Electronic)
IS  - 0096-1523 (Linking)
VI  - 37
IP  - 6
DP  - 2011 Dec
TI  - The crossmodal facilitation of visual object representations by sound: evidence 
      from the backward masking paradigm.
PG  - 1784-802
LID - 10.1037/a0025638 [doi]
AB  - We report a series of experiments designed to demonstrate that the presentation 
      of a sound can facilitate the identification of a concomitantly presented visual 
      target letter in the backward masking paradigm. Two visual letters, serving as 
      the target and its mask, were presented successively at various interstimulus 
      intervals (ISIs). The results demonstrate that the crossmodal facilitation of 
      participants' visual identification performance elicited by the presentation of a 
      simultaneous sound occurs over a very narrow range of ISIs. This critical 
      time-window lies just beyond the interval needed for participants to 
      differentiate the target and mask as constituting two distinct perceptual events 
      (Experiment 1) and can be dissociated from any facilitation elicited by making 
      the visual target physically brighter (Experiment 2). When the sound is presented 
      at the same time as the mask, a facilitatory, rather than an inhibitory effect on 
      visual target identification performance is still observed (Experiment 3). We 
      further demonstrate that the crossmodal facilitation of the visual target by the 
      sound depends on the establishment of a reliable temporally coincident 
      relationship between the two stimuli (Experiment 4); however, by contrast, 
      spatial coincidence is not necessary (Experiment 5). We suggest that when visual 
      and auditory stimuli are always presented synchronously, a better-consolidated 
      object representation is likely to be constructed (than that resulting from 
      unimodal visual stimulation).
FAU - Chen, Yi-Chuan
AU  - Chen YC
AD  - Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom. 
      yi-chuan.chen@queens.oxon.org
FAU - Spence, Charles
AU  - Spence C
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20110926
PL  - United States
TA  - J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform
JT  - Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance
JID - 7502589
SB  - IM
MH  - Acoustic Stimulation
MH  - Adult
MH  - *Auditory Perception
MH  - Female
MH  - *Form Perception
MH  - Humans
MH  - Male
MH  - *Perceptual Masking
MH  - Photic Stimulation
MH  - Time Factors
MH  - Young Adult
EDAT- 2011/09/29 06:00
MHDA- 2012/04/14 06:00
CRDT- 2011/09/28 06:00
PHST- 2011/09/28 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2011/09/29 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2012/04/14 06:00 [medline]
AID - 2011-21777-001 [pii]
AID - 10.1037/a0025638 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2011 Dec;37(6):1784-802. doi: 
      10.1037/a0025638. Epub 2011 Sep 26.