The Beep-Speed Illusion Cannot Be Explained With a Simple Selection Bias

Abstract

Abstract: An object appears to move at higher speed than another equally fast object when brief nonspatial tones coincide with its changes in motion direction. We refer to this phenomenon as the beep-speed illusion ( Meyerhoff et al., 2022 , Cognition, 219, 104978). The origin of this illusion is unclear; however, attentional explanations and potential biases in the response behavior appear to be plausible candidates. In this report, we test a simple bias explanation that emerges from the way the dependent variable is assessed. As the participants have to indicate the faster of the two objects, participants possibly always indicate the audio-visually synchronized object in situations of perceptual uncertainty. Such a response behavior potentially could explain the observed shift in perceived speed. We therefore probed the magnitude of the beep-speed illusion when the participants indicated either the object that appeared to move faster or the object that appeared to move slower. If a simple selection bias would explain the beep-speed illusion, the response pattern should be inverted with the instruction to indicate the slower object. However, contrary to this bias hypothesis, illusion emerged indistinguishably under both instructions. Therefore, simple selection biases cannot explain the beep-speed illusion.