Behavioral and neural factors underlying the perception of the audiovisual bounce effect

Auditory and visual information interact in the brain.

The Audiovisual Bounce Effect (ABE) [1,2,3] is an illusion in which auditory  stimulation affects visual perception.

• Two circles move towards each other on a computer screen and meet in the middle. If a sound is played when the circles meet, the viewer is more likely to perceive them as bouncing, as opposed to streaming past each other.

• We lack a full description of the perceptual and neuronal factors modulating the ABE.

We performed a behavioral experiment to better understand stimulus factors that modulate the ABE, as well as the impact of previous trial outcomes on perception.

We conducted an fMRI study to:

• Localize multisensory integration involved in ABE [5,6] , specifically to guide future high resolution studies.

• Understand individual differences in behavioral factors and neural correlates modulating the ABE.