Dynamic Capture of Sound Motion by Light Stimuli Moving in Three-Dimensional Space

Abstract

A moving light stimulus produced a sensation of motion for a stationary sound stimulus presented simultaneously, which was called the dynamic visual capture by Mateeff, Hohnsbein, and Noack in 1985 The present study examined whether the moving light stimulus might induce a perceptual shift in the velocity, that is, the speed and the direction, of a moving sound stimulus. This type of the visual capture was explored in the directions where the sound stimulus moved along the motion tracks of the light stimulus: first in a horizontal and a vertical orientation and secondly in a depth orientation. Moreover, perceptual distortion of the direction of movement of the sound stimulus was investigated when the direction from which a sound stimulus moved deviated from the motion tracks of a light stimulus. It was found that the dynamic visual capture was inducible in all of three orientations, appearing more strongly in the vertical and the depth orientations than in the horizontal orientation. The perceived direction of the moving sound stimulus was greatly influenced by the direction where the light stimulus moved simultaneously and was often the same as the physical direction of the light stimulus, even when the physical motion directions of those two stimuli were perpendicular or opposite each other.