Temporal Reference, Attentional Modulation, and Crossmodal Assimilation

Crossmodal assimilation effect refers to the prominent phenomenon by which ensemble mean extracted from a sequence of task-irrelevant distractor events, such as auditory intervals, assimilates/biases the perception (such as visual interval) of the subsequent task-relevant target events in another sensory modality. In current experiments, using visual Ternus display, we examined the roles of temporal reference, materialized as the time information accumulated before the onset of target event, as well as the attentional modulation in crossmodal temporal interaction. Specifically, we examined how the global time interval, the mean auditory inter-intervals and the last interval in the auditory sequence assimilate and bias the subsequent percept of visual Ternus motion (element motion vs. group motion). We demonstrated that both the ensemble (geometric) mean and the last interval in the auditory sequence contribute to bias the percept of visual motion. Longer mean (or last) interval elicited more reports of group motion, whereas the shorter mean (or last) auditory intervals gave rise to more dominant percept of element motion. Importantly, observers have shown dynamic adaptation to the temporal reference of crossmodal assimilation: when the target visual Ternus stimuli were separated by a long gap interval after the preceding sound sequence, the assimilation effect by ensemble mean was reduced. Our findings suggested that crossmodal assimilation relies on a suitable temporal reference on adaptation level, and revealed a general temporal perceptual grouping principle underlying complex audio-visual interactions in everyday dynamic situations.